Today’s nugget of knowledge comes courtesy this Reddit post and the OP’s ethics textbook:
Debit Does Dallas heh. The textbook author who came up with that deserves a raise.
In case you didn’t know, Rule 501 of the AICPA Code of Conduct is a bit controversial due to its completely open nature. The code itself outlines only a few obvious instances of CPA malfeasance like not filing your own taxes or obtaining unreleased CPA exam questions from an illicit source (as if sims are being sold on the dark web) while the rest is open to interpretation.
If you feel like reading today, there’s an interesting December 2000 research paper that bravely opens this can of worms. From Can Sexual Acts between (or among) Consenting Adults be Considered an Act Discreditable to the Profession under AICPA Code of Professional Conduct Rule 501? A Philosophical Look at a Practical Ethical Question [source]:
Rule 501 of the AICPA’s Code of Professional Conduct prohibits acts that are discreditable to the profession. The rule states: “A member shall not commit an act discreditable to the profession.” Basically, a discreditable act might be anything that would cause embarrassment to at least one member of the accounting profession. Rule 501 doesn’t say that, but the rationale behind the discreditable act provision is to avoid embarrassment to members of the accounting profession. Once you allow such a vague term to be used, there is no logical stopping point. It is theoretically possible for something to be classified as an act discreditable to the profession if it causes embarrassment to even one accountant. However, some acts have a higher probability of being so classified than others.
Like accounting firm partners participating in and videoing gangbangs? I imagine so …
Obviously public accountants have their own firm’s ethics rules to abide by, and we’re guessing Big 4 firms strongly frown upon their staff appearing on Pornhub but hey, if you run afoul of firm side hustle rules you could always leave and “be an accountant” full-time. Were you to choose this route, you would not be the first CPA to leave your public accounting firm to do porn for a living.
AICPA Code of Professional Conduct [AICPA]
The above links to an old GC article which includes one of the greatest lines in the history of this here website: “You know it’s bad when you’d rather take it up the ass than file one more piece of meaningless paper.”