ACCA对于会计职业生涯有帮助吗？

正确答案：
(b) Draft guidance
(i) Gifts and hospitality
Gifts and hospitality may be offered as an inducement i.e. to unduly influence actions or decisions, encourage illegal or
dishonest behaviour or to obtain confidential information. An offer of gifts and/or hospitality from a client ordinarily gives
rise to threats to compliance with the fundamental principles, for example:
■ self-interest threats to objectivity and/or confidentiality may be created if a gift from a client is accepted;
■ intimidation threats to objectivity and/or confidentiality may arise through the possibility of such offers being made
public and damaging the reputation of the professional accountant (or close family member).
The significance of such threats will depend on the nature, value and intent behind the offer. There may be no significant
threat to compliance with the fundamental principles if a reasonable and informed third party would consider gifts and
hospitality to be clearly insignificant. For example, if the offer of gifts or hospitality is made in the normal course of
business without the specific intent to influence decision making or to obtain information.
If evaluated threats are other than clearly insignificant, safeguards should be considered and applied as necessary to
eliminate them or reduce them to an acceptable level.
Offers of gifts and hospitality should not be accepted if the threats cannot be eliminated or reduced to an acceptable
level through the application of safeguards.
As the real or apparent threats to compliance with the fundamental principles do not merely arise from acceptance of
an inducement but, sometimes, merely from the fact of the offer having been made, additional safeguards should be
adopted. For example:
■ immediately informing higher levels of management or those charged with governance that an inducement has
been offered;
■ informing third parties (e.g. a professional body) of the offer (after seeking legal advice);
■ advising immediate or close family members of relevant threats and safeguards where they are potentially in
positions that might result in offers of inducements (e.g. as a result of their employment situation); and
■ informing higher levels of management or those charged with governance where immediate or close family
members are employed by competitors or potential suppliers of that organisation.

正确答案：
4 Becker & Co
(a) Joint business arrangement
The business opportunity in respect of Murray Co could be lucrative if the market research is to be believed.
However, IFAC’s Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants states that a mutual business arrangement is likely to give rise
to self-interest and intimidation threats to independence and objectivity. The audit firm must be and be seen to be independent
of the audit client, which clearly cannot be the case if the audit firm and the client are seen to be working together for a
mutual financial gain.
In the scenario, two options are available. Firstly, Becker & Co could provide the audit client with finance to complete the
development and take the product to market. There is a general prohibition on audit firms providing finance to their audit
clients. This would create a clear financial self-interest threat as the audit firm would be receiving a return on investment from
their client. The Code states that if a firm makes a loan (or guarantees a loan) to a client, the self-interest threat created would
be so significant that no safeguard could reduce the threat to an acceptable level.
The provision of finance using convertible debentures raises a further ethical problem, because if the debentures are ultimately
converted to equity, the audit firm would then hold equity shares in their audit client. This is a severe financial self-interest,
which safeguards are unlikely to be able to reduce to an acceptable level.
The finance should not be advanced to Murray Co while the company remains an audit client of Becker & Co.
The second option is for a joint venture company to be established. This would be perceived as a significant mutual business
interest as Becker & Co and Murray Co would be investing together, sharing control and sharing a return on investment in
the form. of dividends. IFAC’s Code of Ethics states that unless the relationship between the two parties is clearly insignificant,
the financial interest is immaterial, and the audit firm is unable to exercise significant influence, then no safeguards could
reduce the threat to an acceptable level. In this case Becker & Co may not enter into the joint venture arrangement while
Murray Co is still an audit client.
The audit practice may consider that investing in the new electronic product is a commercial strategy that it wishes to pursue,
either through loan finance or using a joint venture arrangement. In this case the firm should resign as auditor with immediate
effect in order to eliminate any ethical problem with the business arrangement. The partners should carefully consider if the
potential return on investment will more than compensate for the lost audit fee from Murray Co.
The partners should also reflect on whether they want to diversify to such an extent – this investment is unlikely to be in an
area where any of the audit partners have much knowledge or expertise. A thorough commercial evaluation and business risk
analysis must be performed on the new product to ensure that it is a sound business decision for the firm to invest.
The audit partners should also consider how much time they would need to spend on this business development, if they
decided to resign as auditors and to go ahead with the investment. Such a new and important project could mean that they
take their focus off the key business i.e. the audit practice. They should consider if it would be better to spend their time trying
to compete effectively with the two new firms of accountants, trying to retain key clients, and to attract new accounting and
audit clients rather than diversify into something completely different.

正确答案：
(c) Risk committee members can be either executive on non-executive.
(i) Distinguish between executive and non-executive directors
Executive directors are full time members of staff, have management positions in the organisation, are part of the
executive structure and typically have industry or activity-relevant knowledge or expertise, which is the basis of their
value to the organisation.
Non-executive directors are engaged part time by the organisation, bring relevant independent, external input and
scrutiny to the board, and typically occupy positions in the committee structure.