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The Anonymous Caller

In: Business and Management

Submitted By largemann
Words 1101
Pages 5
Memorandum
To:! From:! Date:! ! ! !

Subject:! Case 3.3 — The Anonymous caller!

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this memo is to provide guidance to the anonymous caller, examine issues related to aggressive accounting and financial statement fraud, and provide descriptions of the conditions within the fraud triangle. In providing guidance to the Anonymous caller, we will compare the risks between resigning immediately and staying with the current company. Further, we will discuss other sources of advice for the caller, including legal advice and the State Board of Accountancy. In examining aggressive accounting and financial statement fraud: we will discuss the prevalence of such acts, the pressures put on accountants to perform such acts, and how to determine whether these acts are in accordance with GAAP. The conditions within the fraud triangle are: an incentive to engage in fraud, an opportunity to commit fraud, and an attitude to rationalize the conduct of fraud. We will describe the conditions that existed in the case of the anonymous caller. THE ANONYMOUS CALLER: In this situation, the anonymous caller has recently started working for a small, privatelyheld company and the executives of the company are giving their bank potentially fraudulent financial statements in order to extend their line of credit. The first action the caller should make is to meet with the executives again. The executives have no accounting background, and may not be aware of the considerable risks of providing their bank with fraudulent financial statements. These risks include legal action by the bank and potential jail time for anyone who signed off on the financial statements. The fraudulent activity consists of recording sales transactions before the actual sales occur, thus increasing A/R and boosting the financial statements. Therefore, when meeting with the Page 1

executives the

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