Tort Liability Of A Certified Public Accountant To A Third Party Under A Special General Partnership

In recent years, CPA industry develops rapidly and the accounting firms under the limited liability enjoy sweet treatment of low risk and high returns. The organization form with limited liability plays down the legal responsibility of the Certified Public Accountant, who had contributed to a number of financial frauds. And investors suffer great loss from false audit. But the damages caused by financial frauds and false audit are not guaranteed when the accounting firms do business with limited liability.As we all know, accounting firms with limited liability is no longer adapted to the expansion of the CPA industry. The CPA should take more legal risk and the social responsibility. Then, as we need, a new organization form known as Limited Liability Partnership come into being in our country. In2009, government began to promote accounting firms in China to transfer to be the Limited Liability Partnership. Most accounting firms took a wait-and-see attitude, because the Certified Public Accountants and accounting firms cannot estimate the legal risk by available laws and regulations. Analysis of the CPA’s liability for tort is especially important when the accounting firm take the organization firm known as LLP.The first part of this article deals with background and significance of Limited Liability Partnership. Overview of the second section of this article, it is about the classification and characterization of the CPA’s legal liability. And in this section, there are two famous cases about the history of "the third party" concept and the CPA’s liability for tort. The third section of this article is about the existing problems of the CPA’s liability for tort. Then, the part Ⅳ gives methods of reducing the legal risks of CPA. Finally, there is the conclusion of this article.