What are the requirements for the professional behavior of professional accountants and auditors in Vietnam?
- What are the principles for proficiency and due professional care of accountants and auditors in Vietnam?
- What principles of confidentiality are professional accountants and auditors in Vietnam required to comply with?
- What are the requirements for the professional behavior of professional accountants and auditors in Vietnam?
What are the principles for proficiency and due professional care of accountants and auditors in Vietnam?
Pursuant to Chapter 130 Part A promulgated together with Circular 70/2015/TT-BTC as follows:
Proficiency and due professional care
130.1 All professional accountants and auditors must comply with the principles for proficiency and due professional care:
(a) Maintain professional knowledge and skills at the level necessary to ensure the provision of quality professional services to clients or enterprise owners;
(b) Act prudently in accordance with appropriate professional and technical standards when providing professional activities or services.
130.2 In order to provide quality professional services, professional accountants and auditors shall exercise reasonable judgment when applying their professional knowledge and skills in the performance of such services. Proficiency is formed through 2 stages:
(a) Gain proficiency;
(b) Maintain proficiency.
130.3 The maintenance of proficiency requires professional accountants and auditors to understand and grasp the latest knowledge of relevant techniques, expertise and business lines; The update of professional knowledge helps professional accountants and auditors develop and maintain the ability to provide quality services in a professional working environment.
130.4 Due professional care includes the responsibility to act in accordance with the requirements of the job in a careful, thorough and timely manner.
130.5 Professional accountants and auditors shall take appropriate steps to ensure that employees under their professional management receive appropriate training and supervision.
130.6 Where appropriate, professional accountants or auditors shall inform their clients, enterprise owners or users of services or activities of the limitations inherent in such services or activities.
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Thus, according to the above regulations, the principles for proficiency and due professional care of accountants and auditors in Vietnam are:
- Maintain professional knowledge and skills at the level necessary to ensure the provision of quality professional services to clients or enterprise owners;
- Act prudently in accordance with appropriate professional and technical standards when providing professional activities or services.
What principles of confidentiality are professional accountants and auditors in Vietnam required to comply with?
Pursuant to Chapter 140 Part A promulgated together with Circular 70/2015/TT-BTC, professional accountants and auditors must comply with the principles of confidentiality as follows:
- Professional accountants and auditors must not:
+ Disclose information obtained from professional and business relationships outside accounting and auditing enterprises or enterprises or organizations where they work without the consent of competent persons unless there is a right or obligation to disclose in accordance with the provisions of law or instructions of professional organizations.
+ Use confidential information obtained from professional and business relationships to serve the personal interests or interests of third parties.
- Professional accountants and auditors must
+ Maintain confidentiality of information even in environments outside of work, must be wary of the risk of unintentional disclosure of information, especially to close partners in business or to close or direct family members.
- Must maintain the confidentiality of information obtained from potential clients or entities where they are likely to be employed in the future.
- Maintain confidentiality of information within accounting and auditing enterprises or enterprises or organizations where they work.
- Professional accountants and auditors shall take reasonable steps to ensure that employees under their management who provide their advice or assistance also respect the accountant's responsibility for confidentiality.
Compliance with principles of confidentiality is still necessary even after the professional accountant or auditor has ended the relationship with the client or enterprise owner.
When professional accountants or auditors change units or take on new clients, they may use their previous working experience but may not use or disclose any confidential information collected or received from previous professional or business relationships.
- There are the circumstances in which a professional accountant or auditor is required or may be required to provide confidential information or the provision of such information is appropriate:
+ The provision of information is permitted by law and approved by customers or enterprise owners.
+ The provision of information as required by law, for example:
++ Provide documents or other evidence during the proceedings; or
++ Provide information to the appropriate authority about a detected violation of the law.
+ The professional accountant or auditor has professional rights or obligations to provide, which are not prohibited by law, in order to:
++ Comply with the quality review process of the organization where they are a member or professional organization.
++ Provide information for the questioning or examination process of the professional organization of which they are members or competent authorities.
++ Protect the interests of professional accountants and auditors in the proceedings; or
++ Comply with the provisions of professional standards and ethical requirements.
- When deciding whether to provide confidential information or not, professional accountants and auditors should consider the following matters:
+ Whether the interests of the parties, including third parties whose interests may be affected, will be harmed or not if the customer or enterprise owner agrees to let professional accountants and auditors provide information.
+ Whether professional accountants and auditors know and have clear evidence, in actual conditions allowed, about relevant information.
When there is no clear evidence for the facts, insufficient information or insufficient evidence for conclusions, the accountant or professional auditor must use professional judgment to determine the form of provision of information, if it is decided to provide it.
+ Methods for disclosing appropriate information and subjects receiving such information.
+ Whether the recipient of the information is a suitable subject.
What are the requirements for the professional behavior of professional accountants and auditors in Vietnam?
Pursuant to Chapter 150 Part A promulgated together with Circular 70/2015/TT-BTC, the requirements for the professional behavior of professional accountants and auditors in Vietnam are:
- Professional accountants and auditors must comply with relevant laws and regulations and refrain from any conduct that they know or need to know that would undermine their professional reputation.
These are acts that make a suitable and well-informed third party that, after considering the facts and circumstances available to the accountant or professional auditor at that time, can conclude with relative certainty that such acts have a negative effect on professional reputation.
- Professional accountants and auditors must avoid undermining their professional reputation when promoting themselves and their work. Professional accountants and auditors must be honest, straightforward and must not:
+ Exaggerate about the services they can perform, about their qualifications or experience; or
+ Give discredited information or introductions or make unsubstantiated comparisons about the work of other parties.
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