I think not:
In the seventies, it was recognised that accountants had an obligation to produce accounts for all those who had an interest in a company, not merely the shareholders. But Murphy believes that those standards have fallen since he qualified as an accountant in 1982
“it was recognised that accountants had an obligation to produce accounts for all those who had an interest in a company, not merely the shareholders.”
Recognised by whom?
There has never been an obligation to produce accounts to please a vindictive bag of shyte like Murphy
C
ountryby Countryreporting since 1982Certainly true that the average standard of accountants has fallen since Murphy was admitted to, and remains unexcluded from, membership of ICAEW.
But Murphy believes that those standards have fallen since he qualified as an accountant in 1982
So what? It’s the opinion of a non-practicing CA who, in his career, has had little to no practical professional experience producing financial statements for publicly held companies. I sincerely doubt he has an acceptable working knowledge of today’s disclosure requirements for publicly held companies.
The reality of the situation is that the trend from the 1970s to today is for far more disclosure, rather than less. What Murphy is really upset about is that the required disclosures of today do not give him the ability to drill down into the private matters of company business.
I still remember Murphy’s shock and outrage about a decade ago when he discovered he was denied access to the financial statements and tax returns of privately (not publicly, privately) held U.S. companies.
It may have been recognised in the Seventies, but it was in the decades since that accounting standards developed and the increased disclosures we have today cane into effect.
I remember a class where we had to discuss the usefulness of published statements when I studied in the early 80’s
Part of the problem then, as it is now is that it is difficult to covey complex information in simplistic terms without loosing some of the meaning
This suggests that the Spud hasn’t looked at a set of accounts any time in the last 30 years, which seems absurd for an accountant with a practising certificate but then he is unique
“We were, as a profession, created with a public interest duty. That is why the professional bodies exist, to serve the public interest and that has been forgotten. The firms have acted in their own interests, they’ve acted in the interests of their clients and they haven’t acted in the interests of society at large,” said Murphy.”
Man doesn’t even know the history of his own profession.
No professional body was ever created ‘to serve the public interest’. The closest you get are professional bodies created to police a profession – so the government doesn’t step in and do it even harder. And that’s not why accountancy organizations exist.
“We grant those companies the privilege of limited liability, they don’t have to pay the debts of those companies, if those companies go bust.”
He can’t even speak coherently about his own profession. We don’t grant *corporations* limited liability – we grant the owners of those corporations limited liability. And companies don’t pay anything anyway. Owners, customers, and employees do that. Finally, companies do suffer the ultimate sanction if owners debts can’t be paid – they’re disassembled and the pieces sold like meat.
“. . . think how many people potentially lost their jobs,”
Nobody ever loses their job. It was never their job in the first place. These people do not have a property interest in their employment. Its simply that one party to an ongoing exchange has decided that that exchange is no longer beneficial to them, so they’re dropping out. To say that that party must remain in that exchange until the other party allows them to leave is . . . well, its slavery.