Ethical Issues Of Certified Public Accountants

Through independent auditing activities, CPAs can fully exert their supervisory function in the society. They play an irreplaceable role in maintaining the order of market and economy and facilitating a healthy and orderly development of the market. But some CPAs took quite infamous roles in the recent breakouts of stock market scandals. Despite of anger, people can not help crying out for "integrity", which brings the professional ethics of the CPA to the unprecedented attention of both industries and common people. In this context, this article develops the discussion of issues related to CPA's professional ethics.This article is composed of four parts. The first part starts from basis theories, including the concepts, features and effects of CPA's professional ethics, then analyzes the fundamental requests these professional ethics lay on CPA holders. In the second part, the emphasis is put on the historical evolvements of CPA's professional ethics. From the third part on, the analysis is focused on China's code of professional ethics. The third part puts forward an evaluation of China's current situation in CPA professional ethics and its formation path. Then, in the last part, particular methods are proposed to improve the professional ethics level among China's CPA holders.