ACCT ETHICS Ch 7 – Flashcards

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question
If a company is managing its earnings, which of the ethical theories are they most likely following?
answer
egoism
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Which of the following is NOT a motivation to manage earnings?
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Companies try to accelerate as much revenue as possible into early periods regardless of the effects on later periods
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Which technique was used by both WorldCom and Waste Management to manage earnings?
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Manipulating asset net valuation amounts to minimize operating expenses for a period
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Which of the following author(s) emphasize(s) a "purposeful act by management in pursuit of its own self-interests as might be the case when earnings are manipulated to get the stock price up in advance of the exercise stock options"?
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Schipper
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Which of the following author(s) focus(es) on "management's intent to deceive the stakeholders by using accounting devices to positively influence reported earnings"?
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Healy and Wahlen
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Which of the following author(s) link earnings management to choices made in determining earnings that may comprise aggressive, but acceptable, accounting estimates and judgements, as compared to fraudulent practices that are clearly intended to deceive others?
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Dechow and Skinner
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Which of the following author(s) define(s) earnings management as "reasonable and legal management decision making and reporting intended to achieve stable and predictable financial results"?
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Thomas E. McKee
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Who said "the ethics issue might possibly be mitigated by clearly disclosing aggressive accounting assumptions in the financial statement disclosures?"
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Hopwood et al
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In surveys of managers, which technique to manage earnings was considered most acceptable?
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Manipulating operating decisions
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Which of the following is NOT a qualitative factor when assessing materiality?
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The use of simplistic numerical thresholds and rules of thumb
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SAS No. 107 identifies the following aspects of disclosure amounts deemed to be material except for:
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Disclosing an item in one year but not in the next year
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The best definition of a financial restatement is
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A company, either voluntarily or under prompting by its auditors or regulators, revises its public financial information that was previously reported
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The SEC requires stealth restatements to be
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disclosed only in an 8-K report or amended 10-K/A or 10-Q/A
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The SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements in Financial Reporting identified each of the following as a view of equity and credit analysts about investors' views on materiality and financial statement restatements except for:
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bright line rules are useful in making materiality judgments
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Which of the following is NOT an earnings management technique?
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Creating an allowance for uncollectible accounts and adjusting it at year end
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Which of the following was not pointed to by the SEC as a motivation for fraud in the Xerox case?
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Xerox top management overrode the internal control to manipulate earnings
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Which of the following earnings management techniques were not used in the Lucent Technologies, Inc.'s case?
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Shifting current revenue to a later period
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Which of the following was not true according to the Enron case?
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Fastow developed the concept of buying up oil and gas companies to establish SPEs
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Which of the following partnerships that Enron created eventually led to its demise?
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Chewco
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What was the original motivation by FASB on SPEs?
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to establish a mechanism to encourage companies to inset in needed assets while keeping related debt off its books
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There are several aspects of Enron fraud that are death with directly in SOX, further connecting Enron to reform in the accounting profession. Which of the following is true?
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Related-party transactions require disclosure in the notes
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The best way to characterize the role of Sherron Watkins in the downfall of Enron is
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she tried to alert Ken Law about the accounting scandal at Enron
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The basic ethical principle violated by Andy Fastow in his role as Enron's CFO and involvement with SPEs was
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he had a conflict of interest in his dual roles
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"Cookie jar reserves" can best be described as
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overstating or understating allowances and reversing amounts in the future to smooth out net income over time
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All of the following are examples of "Boosting Income with One-Time Gains" except for:
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recording sales that lack economic substance
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The expression "Too many corporate managers, auditors, and analysts, are participants in a game of nods and winks" is attributable to:
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Arthur Levitt
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Congress passed the "Sarbanes-Oxley Act" on July 30, 2002. Which of the following is NOT true?
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New audit standards include a prohibition against independent auditors providing many non-audit services and mandatory audit engagement partner rotation
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"Earnings management either ignores or does not consider the rights of the investors and creditors to receive accurate, reliable, and transparent financial statements." This statement is from
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a rights perspective
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Inherent risk refers to
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the possibility that a material misstatement will occur within the reporting company's accounting information system
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The main difference between a discretionary and non discretionary accrual is
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discretionary accruals are items that management has full control over
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In the Matrixx Intiatives V. Siracusano case, the Supreme Court adopted the position about materiality that
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it should be determined by considering whether the total mix of information would be viewed by a reasonable investor as possibly accepting judgment
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You work for a company that pushes the envelope with respect to reporting revenues and expenses. You often disagree with the company because it's approach to reporting these amounts cannot be justified from a GAAP perspective. You are upset and are considering whether this is a company that has a culture you want to be a part of. Which of the following best characterizes the ethical issues of concern?
answer
Ethical dissonance
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Debbie and Steve are discussing a lecture given by their ethics professor after class one day. The professor said that misstatements of earnings are always unethical. Debbie aggress with this situation but Steve does not. What statement might Steve make to best support his point of view?
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it depends on whether the misstatements were made deliberately
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The swap transactions used in the Solutions Network case to manage earnings can best be described as
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recording revenue on software systems transactions in an earlier period that when obligated to buy the same in a later period
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The Solway case looks at the accounting issue of
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recording of accruals to manage earnings
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The accounting shenanigan used in the Dell Computer case can best be described as
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shifting current revenue from exclusivity payments to a later period
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In the Sweat Construction case, the company tried to manipulate earnings through the use of which accounting technique?
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percentage of competition method
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Which of the following was not an accounting issue in the Sunbeam case?
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swap transactions
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The North Face case deals with materiality and how auditors employ that metric in an audit. The following are all true except
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Crawford followed the GAAP methods that Deloitte suggested
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The former CEO of Vivendi Universal, Jean-Marie Messier, used as his defense in the case that
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while some of his actions may have turned out to be wrong, there was never an intent to defraud
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