Ethical Dilemma

Harry Potter is an Accounting and Financial Planning graduate from Hogwarts Business School in the UK. He joined a top Financial Planning firm called Wizard Finance Planning in Melbourne and has just started to settle into Australia, Melbourne and his role. It is a big change for Harry to move across continents. He was welcomed by the company and provided with an induction and a strong mentoring system which is in place at Wizard. Harry has always been a model student during his time at university and graduated with distinction and honours.

From the first week of work, Harry was able to sign up some big clients for their investment products which brought him significant recognition within the firm. The achievements empowered him with his work and looked forward to growing his skills and abilities through the mentorship program and professional development within Financial Planning. Wizard Finance is a relatively close-knit organisation and they usually multi-task given the limited number of staff within the organisation. It is expected that a staff member would also assist in other areas of work such as marketing, finance and reporting divisions of the company. Harry was assigned mentor who was the Head of his division, Lucius Malfoy. Lucius had significant experience and a large group of clients under his belt in the company and is considered a veteran in the industry.

Harry was asked by Lucius to assist with preparing the financials for his division given the person handling this was allocated to another project. While Harry was going through some of the financial records, he discovered a range of significant and material costs arbitrarily allocated as other expenses including being classified as donations. On further investigation and looking at the original source documents, you found that some of these expenses were used for lavish spending on staff training, development and team building entertainment programs. However, there were extended concerns when you learnt that these events were also attended mostly by friend and family of Lucius and other senior colleagues in other divisions and expensed against Luciuss division budget.

Harry has also discovered that this has been happening for a while and these events were considered as the norm by Lucius, though there are clear guidelines within the company policies which does not support these activities and the current classifications & disclosures of such expenses may not be appropriate. Furthermore, there may be additional external implications of the cost classification within the Tax system and the ATO, which may have fringe benefit tax implications.

Based on Harrys education at Hogwarts Business School and induction training within Wizard Financial Planning, Harry is of the view that these activities and expenditures may not an appropriate use of company resources and also not a beneficial use of corporate funds given significant part of it is used mostly on nonemployees. You are also concerned that it may be breaching corporate policy and possibly tax laws. Harry has also calculated that given the significance of the expenditure, there was scope to reduce the consulting fees and give a better deal to the financial planning clients if these material costs were reduced, which may lead to an increase in the client base with more competitive consulting fee structures, resulting in increased profits for the firm.

Harry is considered a rising star within Wizard Financial Planning and as mentioned above, is creating a name for himself not only with Lucius but also with extended senior managers in parallel divisions and his fellow peers. Harry had attended one of these events with Lucius in the past, and now he is more reluctant to attend them after realising that its more of a private party atmosphere as opposed to genuine training, team building and networking for staff.

Harry feels that given the circumstances, he needs to fully evaluate the current situation and context and raise the issue with the appropriate chain of command. However, given that the financial task was allocated to him by Lucius and Lucius is significantly involved with the events in question, Harry is unsure whether it is best to go to him in the first instance. Harry also feels that his actions will have a significant impact on his future career prospects within Wizard Financial Planning and also with some of the other Financial Planning firms, given Luciuss extensive reputation within the industry. You feel that if angered, Lucius may influence his contacts within the industry to exclude you for gaining a position in other Financial Planning firms.

There are number of implications of the findings. There may be a possibility that legal proceedings may be brought against the firm by the ATO due to fringe benefit tax implications, which may lead to reputational loss of Wizard Financial Planning. This may have a significant impact on the going concern of Wizard. Overall, Wizard Financial Planning has been providing significant service to its clients and if the firm goes into administration and eventual closure, it may affect a significant stakeholder groups including clients and employees.

Harry is at cross-roads in terms of what actions he should take. What will be Harrys best course of action?

Please use the following guidelines in addressing the issue.

PART A:

In responding to the case, you must do the followings:

1. Outline and detail the ethical decision-making model of your choice (300 words)
2. Justify why you have chosen this model (as opposed to alternate models) as the approach to resolve the ethical dilemma (200 words)
3. Apply the chosen model to the case. (1500 words)