Certified Public Accountants: Trustworthy or Not

This paper will discuss the public perception of certified public accountants (CPA) in today's society, pitfalls that they may encounter, methods to prevent some of these negative behaviors and consequences they may face should they fall short. The CPA profession has a squeaky clean image of anal-retentive little wimps who wear thick glasses and cannot get a date. CPAs are known and respected for their honesty. This is known as the profession that goes out of its way to project that image, and there is a certain amount of truth to it. Not all accountants are anal-retentive little wimps who cannot get a date. Many of them are quite articulate. Some are quite lovely, in some schools, and more than half of the accounting majors are women. Also, not all CPAs are squeaky clean and respected for their honesty. Some are quite dishonest and are putting a black mark on the image of the entire profession. There is one area where the CPA profession has fallen short of protecting the public intere...