Ethics for Wisconsin CPAs – 3 Hours

This three-hour course covers the rules that actually govern a Wisconsin CPA's conduct: Chapter Accy 1 of the Wisconsin Administrative Code, the Rules of Conduct issued by the Accounting Examining Board, read alongside the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, which Accy 1.101 adopts by reference and applies to every Wisconsin licensee.

The Wisconsin material is covered subchapter by subchapter. It begins with who the rules reach — including the licensee who holds significant influence over a CPA-related business, or who advertises as a CPA while operating any business at all, and the twenty per cent ownership presumption Wisconsin uses to decide what significant influence means. It then works through professional conduct and the prohibitions on knowingly misrepresenting facts or subordinating judgment; the general standards of competence, due professional care, planning and supervision, and sufficient relevant data, together with the rule against lending a CPA's name to a forecast in a way that suggests the CPA vouches for its achievability; and the auditing, accounting and other technical standards incorporated into Wisconsin law.

On responsibilities to clients, it covers confidential client information and the four circumstances in which the rule does not restrict disclosure, and Wisconsin's distinctive treatment of contingent fees, commissions and referral fees — a contingent fee is permitted where there is a written agreement signed by the client stating how the fee is determined and describing all costs, with a written statement of fees and costs at the conclusion, but is prohibited outright for anyone the accountant performs attest services for. Commissions require written disclosure of the amount and the reason at the time of the referral, and referral fees carry disclosure obligations on both the accountant receiving and the accountant paying them.

The rules on other responsibilities and practices receive particular attention, because this is where Wisconsin is most specific. Acts discreditable is covered with its full interpretations: the line between the accountant's working papers and the client's records, with worked examples of each; the point at which the duty to return records is discharged; how the Board treats a conviction, and the requirement that a CPA notify the Board in writing within forty-eight hours of being convicted of a crime; receiving a fee for services not performed; and discrimination in employment practices. The course also covers advertising and solicitation, incompatible occupations and the conflicts created by association with unlicensed practitioners, firm names and the categories Wisconsin treats as misleading, network firm naming, practice while suspended, the thirty-day deadline for responding to the Board, and the requirement that more than fifty per cent of a licensed firm be owned by certificate holders.

The AICPA Code is then covered across all three of its parts — members in public practice, members in business, and other members — including integrity and objectivity, preparing and reporting information, responding to noncompliance with laws and regulations, the general standards, compliance with standards and accounting principles rules, acts discreditable, contingent fees, commissions and referral fees, advertising, confidential client information, and form of organization and name. The independence material is current, covering 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, nonattest services, staff augmentation arrangements, and the determining fees and fee dependency interpretations that took effect in January 2025.

The reasoning behind the rules gets equal weight. The course 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, and sets out the five core foundations of independence, integrity, objectivity, public interest and due care.

Wisconsin case studies apply the rules directly: an unpaid auditor holding records without which the client's books are incomplete, who is then asked to sign an unqualified opinion on a forecast for the client's bank; a newly licensed CPA whose only experience is individual tax returns proposing to trade as Audit Experts Group; and a CPA who has resigned a difficult client and then receives a letter from the Accounting Examining Board about that client's complaint.

Learning objectives

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

1. Define ethics from an overall and professional perspective.
2. Describe the rules of conduct contained in Chapter Accy 1 of the Wisconsin Administrative Code.
3. Describe the ethical standards contained in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.