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Interview Assignment

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Interview Assignment

Interview Assignment

Discussion Board Thread Criteria • Submit a thread to the Discussion Board with a description of the interview. Include what you have learned about the importance of an understanding of business law to the accounting profession. • The description must be at least 1,000 words in length excluding the reference list. • APA format • Sources to support your description are required.

Interview Assignment Instructions

You will conduct an interview and respond to the Interview Assignment Discussion Board. Late projects will not be accepted. Masters-level writing, including correct use of English grammar and proper, current APA format are required. Further, you should follow all relevant directions already given for Discussion Boards Forums.

Interview Assignment Guidelines:

  • You will identify an accounting professional who is not a lawyer (e.g. a practicing CPA or an accountant working internally for a large organization (e.g. Fortune 1000 company, national non-profit organization, branch of the Armed Services, or a mega-church with membership over 1,500)).
  • You will set up an interview with an accounting professional who may be active or retired.

The Interviews:

  • Identify yourself as an MSA student doing research and make it clear that you will take no more than 30 minutes of the accounting professional’s time.
  • Explain that you are in a business law class for accountants.
  • Tell your interviewee that you have identified him or her as an accounting professional and that you wanted to find out an accounting professional’s perspective of the importance of an understanding of business law to his or her professional work. Have a good reason (e.g. personal knowledge, an article you have read, testimony of subordinates, etc.)
  • Discuss some of the core academic concepts you have learned in the course. You can find a good list to get you started by looking at the textbook’s table of contents.
  • Be sure that you can contact your interviewee again to thank them and to ask them if you have any follow-up questions.

Discussion Board Thread Criteria

  • Submit a thread to the Discussion Board with a description of the interview. Include what you have learned about the importance of an understanding of business law to the accounting profession.
  • The description must be at least 1,000 words in length excluding the reference list.
  • You are also required to reply to at least 2 other classmates’ threads which must be at least 200 words in length.
  • Current APA format and other applicable requirements from earlier Discussion Board assignments are required.
  • Sources to support your description are required.

Additional Considerations:

  • You must have a clear, academic rationale for the selection of your accounting professional. Failure to present said rationale will result in an immediate 20% reduction in grade.

Submit your thread by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Thursday of Module/Week 6 and your replies by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday of the same assigned module/week.

Interview Assignment

ACCT 511 Advanced Business Law for Accountants

 

Interviee: Keith William Phillips, CPA, Apha Kappa member

Current Profession: National Sales Director for Primerica Finacial Services

PFS Investments Inc. Registered Representative

Treasurer of Primerica African American Leadership Councel

 

The importance of business law education is significant to an accountant because of the fact that there is a compulsory commercial law topic in the academic requirements for a chartered accountants’ program of study. For example, two New Zealand universities conducted a survey in order to determine whether the current business law curriculum offered was adequate in terms of preparing accounting students for the wide variety of legal issues that they may be exposed to throughout their careers (McCourt, Low & Tappin, 2013).

The purpose of the surveys was to gain information on students’ perceptions of the adequacy of the business law curriculum at their universities. The findings indicated that were gaps between what was currently taught and what students believed ought to be taught. The results also reflected accounting students’ belief that each of the 11 business law topics identified in the survey should be explored in greater detail. In particular, taxation law, employment law and trust law have the largest disparities between the level of detail taught and the level of detail expected by students. The main change recommended by students is “that of a shift from the traditional law approach (which focuses on the technical details of contracts and other traditional legal topics) to the legal environment approach (which places more emphasis on understanding how the legal system operates and the role of the law in business)” (McCourt, Low & Tappin, 2013, pg. 1).

According to Keith William Phillips, the key to becoming an effective accountant is to be relational with one’s client. In order to be effective in directing one’s client to the right business decisions, the accountant must win or have his or her client’s trust. This trust between the client and the accounting professional is developed when the accountant displays a deep understanding and knowledge of business law while executing his or her professional work.

Moreover, Phillips believes that, in regard to the areas of financial, managerial, and tax accounting, a business owner should know a thing or two about these different fields of accounting in order to run his or her business smoothly. Many people think all accounting are the same, but they are not. Some accountants like tax accounting, others are intrigued by forensic accounting (the integration of accounting, auditing and investigative skills to assist in the investigation of financial and business related issues) (Zysman, 2014). Moreover, when a business owner wants to turn his or her business into a public company, the organization  has to comply with federal, state, and other local laws, and will have to comply with the SEC as well.

Even if an individual owns a small business, he or she still needs to know the process of how to get his or her business started in the first place (licensing, certification etc.). Once the business is running, a business owner will need to know how to protect his or her  business from things like lawsuits, creditors, the IRS, and other government agencies etc…

All of these aspects of operating a business successfully are part of business law and an accountant must know not only the traditional law approach which focuses on the technicality of contracts, agency and corporate law but also the legal environment approach that targets taxation law, employment law and trust law (McCourt, Low & Tappin, 2013).

Taxation law is concerned only with the legal aspects of taxation, not with its financial, economic, or other aspects. International tax law is concerned with the problems arising when an individual or corporation is taxed in several countries. Tax law can also be divided into material tax law, which is the analysis of the legal provisions giving rise to the charging of a tax; and formal tax law, which concerns the rules laid down in the law as to assessment, enforcement, procedure, coercive measures, administrative and judicial appeal, and other such matters (Tax law, 2014). Business law gives an accountant knowledge about taxation law to better serve his or cher clients locally or internationally.

Addtionally, another business law core concept that accountants need to know is the emoployment tax. The employment tax audits are a fact of life for many businesses, and accountants often possess critical information and intimate knowledge that can be crucial to the successful defense of such an audit. Knowing how to and when to use such information can make a crucial difference to the success of the audit (MacDonnell & Weissman, 2008). The accountant will be auditing: social security tax, medicare tax, federal unemployment insurance tax, and  personal income tax withholding. The accountant auditor will conduct a factual and legal analysis before providing any information, a review of all relevant documents, know the audit periods at issue, and organize a separate file for each worker (MacDonnell & Weissman, 2008).

Lastly, in business law accountants will deal with trust law. Most states have enacted significant changes in their trust laws regarding the definition of accounting income and principal. These state laws have a big effect on the rights of trust beneficiaries and on the rights and liabilities of trustees. There may be a conflict of interest and a potential ethics violation if the accountant is a trustee and does the tax return for the income beneficiary (Goldberg, 2005). To avoid these issues, the accountant should be aware of the potential conflicts that exist between a trustee and income beneficiary under his or her state trust laws. “The accountant should secure written consents to continue the dual representation engagement. If the accountant is not a trustee but does the income tax return for both the trust and the income beneficiary, then the accountant may or may not have an ethics issue, depending on the facts and circumstances” (Goldberg, 2005, pg. 7).

In conclusion, Moore and Gillen (1985) believed that “the object of [business schools] is to turn out graduates who are not only capable and successful but also socially aware and responsible, then a course or courses in law would seem to be an inescapable component of the undergraduate curriculum” (p. 356). Moreover, Prentice (2001) contends that “no accountant is thoroughly educated [without] substantial exposure to a wide range of substantive legal subjects, as well as to legal and ethical reasoning” (p. 599).

Accountants needs to be honest and have integrity when dealing with their clients financial information. Christian Accountants should follow Biblical principles and strive to align themselves to God’s word and reflect Christ in their actions and attitudes. Accountants should  also be trustworthy. Trustworthy means that the accoutant is  dependable, responsible, and honest in every transaction and interaction. Proverbs 11:3 (ESV) says. “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.”

 

 

 

 

 

References

Goldberg, S. (2005). Revised uniform state trust laws: The role of the accountant. The Planner, 20(3), 7. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/214831940?accountid=12085

McCourt, A., Low, M., & Tappin, E. (2013). The relevance of business law education for future accountants: a New Zealand perspective. e-Journal of Business Education and Scholarship Teaching, 7(2), 1+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA360994506&v=2.1&u=vic_liberty&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=be56cb5935fc25cef0bbcb78600eccff

MacDonnell, G. J. S., & Weissman, W. H. (2008). Employment tax audits. The CPA Journal, 78(4), 48-51. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/212233755?accountid=12085

Moore, G. A., & Gillen, S. E. (1985). Managerial competence in law and the business law curriculum: The corporate counsel perspective. American Business Law Journal, 23(3), 351-389. Retrieved from Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/203396364?accountid=12085

Prentice, R. A. (2001). The case for educating legally-aware accountants. American Busines Law Journal, 38(3), 597-631. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/doi/10.1111/j.1744-1714.2001.tb00297.x/pdf

Tax law. (2014). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/584564/tax-law

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