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- All Subjects: ACC
- Creators: Samuelson, Melissa
Description
Financial statements are one of the most important, if not the most important, documents for investors. These statements are prepared quarterly and yearly by the company accounting department, and are then audited in detail by a large external accounting firm. Investors use these documents to determine the value of the company, and trust that the company was truthful in its statements, and the auditing firm correctly audited the company's financial statements for any mistakes in their books and balances. Mistakes on a company's financial statements can be costly. However, financial fraud on the statements can be outright disastrous. Penalties for accounting fraud can include individual lifetime prison sentences, as well as company fines for billions of dollars. As students in the accounting major, it is our responsibility to ensure that financial statements are accurate and truthful to protect ourselves, other stakeholders, and the companies we work for. This ethics game takes the stories of Enron, WorldCom, and Lehman Brothers and uses them to help students identify financial fraud and how it can be prevented, as well as the consequences behind unethical decisions in financial reporting. The Enron scandal involved CEO Kenneth Lay and his predecessor Jeffery Skilling hiding losses in their financial statements with the help of their auditing firm, Arthur Andersen. Enron collapsed in 2002, and Lay was sentenced to 45 years in prison with his conspirator Skilling sentenced to 24 years in prison. In the WorldCom scandal, CEO Bernard "Bernie" Ebbers booked line costs as capital expenses (overstating WorldCom's assets), and created fraudulent accounts to inflate revenue and WorldCom's profit. Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison and lost his title as WorldCom's Chief Executive Officer. Lehman Brothers took advantage of a loophole in accounting procedure Repo 105, that let the firm hide $50 billion in profits. No one at Lehman Brothers was sentenced to jail since the transaction was technically considered legal, but Lehman was the largest investment bank to fail and the only large financial institution that was not bailed out by the U.S. government.
ContributorsPanikkar, Manoj Madhuraj (Author) / Samuelson, Melissa (Thesis director) / Ahmad, Altaf (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
With 2016 marking the 100th Anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS), important discussions regarding the future of America's beloved parks and respective government funding must take place. Imagine all the money, including tax revenue, flowing through America's national parks system, and where is that money destined for in the future? National park funding will factor greatly into determining the future of America's NPS and individual parks. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate where and how government funding, for the present and future, is distributed throughout the parks protected under the NPS. Through personal experiences as a child, national parks consistently provide a unique exposure to and an education of the natural world, which are rare finds when growing up in suburban or metropolitan regions. Narrowing down, this analysis will focus on government disbursements to Yellowstone National Park (Yellowstone) and Isle Royale National Park (Isle Royale) with specifics on two budgeted projects crucial to park survival. Yellowstone and Isle Royale each request funding for a project crucial to the park's ecosystem and a project intended to improve guest services for visitors. Closing comments will provide recommendations for Yellowstone, Isle Royale and the NPS, including effects of President Trump's 2018 Government Proposed Budget, in an attempt to offer forward thinking about national parks. The projects and respective funding as detailed in this analysis have a forward-thinking focus as other projects included in the NPS requested funding budgets consider as well. Current actions and efforts are crucial to the long-term life and of this country's national parks for future generations to come.
ContributorsHager, Madeline (Author) / Samuelson, Melissa (Thesis director) / Kenchington, David (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12