US Department of Defense (DOD) - This year, the Pentagon failed its fifth audit in a row.This means that the Pentagon cannot keep track of the money it spends. All other federal agencies have passed their audits each year since 2013, and yet for the fiscal year 2021, auditors were unable to account for a 61% of the Pentagon assets. With total assets on the Pentagon's Balance Sheet of $3.2 TRILLION in 2023, this is no joke!!!!

Pandemic Relief Funds Stolen - An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. This is the biggest fraud in US History!!! This is a great article on this fraud - Pandemic Relief Fraud.pdf (not assigned)Download Pandemic Relief Fraud.pdf (not assigned)

Your assignment is to look into the Department of Defense (DOD) audit from 2018. Or you can look at another story including Pandemic Relief that you find. Briefly discuss the following:

• What does it mean for a government to have a fiduciary responsibility to the public?
• How has the government failed to meet their fiduciary obligations? Is that Unethical?
• The accounting at the DOD is simply horrific. What are some of the failings that have been found in Audits and investigations?
• How have internal controls failed in the DOD?
• As these failings affect every single taxpayer in the United States, what can be done to improve systems and safeguards to ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer funds?
• Do CPA's have a fiduciary duty? To whom? (See Below - Fiduciary Duty of CPA's)

Use the resources below or others to complete this assignment. First Read the "Rolling Stone Article".

Some of this info is from 2018. Things have gotten "sort of" cleaner and more transparent in more recent audits, however their records and systems are still a complete disaster and inexcusable. :) Contrast this story with what would happen if a privately held company was this big of a disaster.

• Rolling Stone Article - Rolling Stone DOD Article.pdfDownload Rolling Stone DOD Article.pdf
• Actions Needed to Fix - DOD Actions Needed.pdfDownload DOD Actions Needed.pdf
• 2018 Inspector General DOD Audit Analysis - 2018 Inspector General Audit Analysis.pdfDownload 2018 Inspector General Audit Analysis.pdf
• Fiduciary Duty of CPA's - Fiduciary Duty of CPA's.pdfDownload Fiduciary Duty of CPA's.pdf

Additional Resources

• 2018 DOD Audit Analysis - 2018 Audit Analysis.pdfDownload 2018 Audit Analysis.pdf
• 2018 DOD Financial Report - DOD 2018 Financial Report.pdfDownload DOD 2018 Financial Report.pdf