Ethics for Indiana CPAs – 4 Hours

This four-hour course is designed to meet the four-hour ethics CPE requirement for Indiana CPAs, and it covers both halves of what an Indiana licensee is actually held to: the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, which Indiana adopts by reference at 872 IAC 1-2-1, and the Indiana statutes and Administrative Code rules that sit alongside it.

The Indiana material is drawn from Title 25, Article 1, Chapter 11 of the Indiana Code, Title 25, Article 2.1, and Title 872 of the Indiana Administrative Code, and opens with a section on recent developments in Indiana statutes and rules. It is taught largely through worked case examples rather than recitation, so the rules arrive attached to the situations that produce complaints.

The AICPA half is covered across all three parts of the Code. For members in public practice: the conceptual framework of threats and safeguards, with worked illustrations of each of the seven threat categories; integrity and objectivity; preparing and reporting information; responding to noncompliance with laws and regulations; independence; the general standards, compliance with standards and accounting principles rules; acts discreditable; contingent fees; commissions and referral fees, including the written disclosure now required; advertising and other forms of solicitation; confidential client information, including the treatment of third-party service providers, prospective purchasers of a practice, and data breach obligations; and form of organization and name. For members in business: the six-threat framework as it applies inside an employing organization, with an unusually practical catalogue of the safeguards an employer can put in place, together with integrity and objectivity, the obligation to an employer's external accountant, pressure to breach the rules, noncompliance with laws and regulations, the general and accounting standards rules, acts discreditable, and confidential information obtained through employment or volunteer work. Part 3 covers members who are retired or otherwise not in practice.

The independence material is the most current of any course in this catalogue. Alongside the established rules on network firms, alternative practice structures, indemnification, unpaid fees, financial interests and the treatment of immediate family and close relatives, deposit accounts, loans and leases, litigation and nonattest services, it covers the determining fees and fee dependency interpretations effective January 2025, the revised executive and employee recruiting rules effective January 2026, and the revised interpretation on simultaneous employment or association with an attest client — together with the conforming changes to client affiliates, considering employment with an attest client, and membership of a social club — which take effect in September 2026.

The course also grounds the rules in ethical reasoning. It separates morals from ethics and shows where the two diverge, using Prohibition and the Nike contract manufacturing controversy of the 1990s as cases where prevailing moral views pulled ethical standards above what the law required; offers the Publicity Standard and the Person Looking Over Your Shoulder Standard as practical tests; and sets out the five core foundations of independence, integrity, objectivity, public interest and due care. Where a dilemma will not resolve, it points to the AICPA Professional Ethics Division hotline and the Indiana CPA Society's own ethics hotline.

Case studies run throughout: a controller whose president loads a trailer and parks it in the lot on 31 December to make budget; a friend whose cash restaurant reports a loss and who says the figures are the ones he wants reported; married tax clients going through a divorce; year-end adjustments made with a bank loan covenant in view; an audit engagement accepted without relevant experience; peer review findings on an unqualified report; a fee quoted as the greater of a fixed amount or a percentage of a tax refund; a firm proposing to advertise as audit experts; and a dispute over adjusting journal entries and work paper retention.

Learning objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Recognize the ethical standards contained in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.
2. Recognize the ethical standards contained in the Indiana State Board of Accountancy rules and related Indiana statutes.