Ethics in the Real World (for Accountants)

As an accountant or tax professional, you already know that it’s essential to follow along with annual updates in the world of tax legislation. You might consider a seminar that spans several days and covers all of the details of the new tax law, or just a simple tax webinar that’s focused on a particular topic. Either way, these CPE hours are an important part of staying up to date on changes to the tax code and fulfilling your state’s licensure requirements.

No matter where you’re located, virtually every state requires that you obtain a minimum number of ethics-focused CPE hours as part of your regular continuing education requirements. This isn’t always easy to accomplish. Why? Well, in many parts of the country, the educational offerings for accountants are few and far between. Plus, when you do find an ethics course that’s available in your area, the information being presented is often outmoded and unrelated to the needs of your particular practice.

That’s where Basics & Beyond™ comes in. We’re dedicated to offering relevant, interesting, engaging continuing education opportunities to accounting and tax professionals like you. When you choose an ethics webinar with Basics & Beyond, you’ll gain valuable real-world ethics information that’s applicable to the daily scenarios that you encounter as part of your accounting practice.

The Best Ethics Webinars On the Web

When it comes to accounting and tax preparation, there are a wide range of professions and occupations that a business of individual filer might seek out for advice. Basics & Beyond understands this, and we’ve made sure that our content is tailored to suit the needs of any and all accounting professionals, regardless of their individual backgrounds.

If you work as an Enrolled Agent (EA), you’ll glean a ton of valuable information from one of our ethics webinars. As a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), you’re guaranteed to walk away with information that’s directly applicable to your practice. And, if you’re a certified tax preparer, Basics & Beyond can provide you with the 2 hours of annual training in ethics necessary to renew your certification with the IRS.

What Do We Mean by Accounting Ethics, and Why Does It Matter?

When you first become an accounting or tax professional, you may have been confused by your state’s annual (or biennial) requirements for continuing education in the field of ethics. When you think about it, though, ethical considerations are an incredibly important part of providing tax preparation or accounting services to clients. If you’re working with a big corporation, there are serious things at stake: an investor may, for example, use a report that you’ve put together to decide if they should invest their personal funds into a particular company. When putting together tax documents to submit to the IRS, it’s essential to ensure that they’ve been prepared according to the highest standards of truth and full disclosure. There are cases where an accountant who’s operating according to high ethical standards can notice and make public an instance of fraud in the financials of a large company, potentially protecting both private investors and the general public from financial ruin later on down the line.

So, what exactly does ethical behavior look like for an accountant? Depending on your professional situation and the circumstances of your particular client relationship, acting ethically can take on a number of shapes. Regardless of the specifics, you’ll need to be an objective, reliable source of information for your client. Your job is to provide them with a reliable and neutral view of their finances. It’s also important to offer a comprehensive picture of their monetary circumstances, doing your best to provide them with all of the necessary information to help them make the best possible financial decisions. And, above all, you’ll need to practice professional behavior: you want to ensure that your client feels as though they can trust you when it comes to their finances.

In the real world, though, situations related to ethical behavior are often not as clear cut as this description might lead you to believe. Acting as an ethical accountant or tax professional involves more than simply following a fixed set of rules in a predictable array of circumstances. You’ll need to update your understanding of regulations and laws related to ethics and accounting from year to year, particularly changes to the law that can occur at the local, state, or federal level. Additionally, your state’s board of accounting may implement changes to its ethical standards from year to year, and you’ll need to stay abreast of these. At Basics & Beyond, we offer CPE tax ethics webinars designed to fulfill just this purpose.

Ethics in the Real World: Tax and Accounting Webinars

Our focus at Basics & Beyond is on offering our clients high quality, relevant, real world training when it comes to ethics and accounting. Here are some sample webinars that demonstrate what you can expect to learn when you choose Basics & Beyond for your CPE accounting needs.

Ethics and the Tax Client

As of the past few years, a number of new regulations have been put forth and implemented that impact how accountants and tax preparers can and cannot work with their clients. As part of our annual income tax update, Basics & Beyond offers accountants and tax professionals alike an annual briefing on changes to IRS law that impact the ethical component of tax preparation for clients. We’ll discuss how Enrolled Agents may be impacted by new ethical requirements; how CPAs should behave in order to comply with new professional conduct standards; and general updates to the ethics of tax preparation and accounting. We’ll also discuss ethics as it relates to your daily professional experience.

“Do the Right Thing”: Ethics for the Tax Professional

As time goes on, tax preparers are expected to fulfill a growing number of ethical roles. Governmental agencies continue to shape what tax professionals are expected to do when working with clients. With this webinar, Basics & Beyond will look at how professional associations and licensing boards are shaping the future of professional ethical standards. We’ll also examine how tax and accounting professionals can adhere to these standards. Finally, we’ll examine the way that the IRS and the U.S. Congress are looking to transition the focus of tax preparers in the direction of compliance, and how this shaft can impact tax planning.

For Accounting Ethics, Choose Basics & Beyond

Are you ready to learn about real world ethics for accountants? If so, Basics & Beyond is the best choice for your CPE ethics requirements. Click here to learn about our competitive pricing and sign up for one of our webinars.