You've just received your CPA license and have been hired as an accountant by the Financial Department of a corporation. You're responsible for accurately balancing the company's books and reporting any discrepan-cies you might find. Your goal is to ensure that your business covers all its financial bases and doesn't losemoney through misappropriation of funds. To do so, you follow the company's internal processes as well asthose laid down by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). To best live into yourrole, you must live into the principle of integrity.

THE PROBLEM:

Getting your new job took a lot of work, but you finally have a position that offers everything you want. You've only just started to settle in when you discover a disturbing pattern while going over some expense reports and bills. Gary one of the company's top salespeople appears to have been submitting over- stated expense reports for more than a year. The discrepancies average about $200 a month and have been as high as $400 a month. Many receipts that Gary was supposed to turn in for the reimbursement are missing.

None of the missing receipts exceed $25, but your company has a strict policy about needing copies of ev-ery receipt before an expense can be reimbursed. Pointing out the error to your supervisor would be within the scope of your responsibilities, but clearly Gary's boss, the VP of Sales, has been signing off on the incom-plete expense reports for some time. Reporting your findings might get you labeled as a whistleblower a position not as protected within the business world as some might think. You read a high-profile whistle-blowing case in the news recently where an employee had reason to believe her boss was engaged in insider trading. Yet when she reported her suspicions, she faced months of interrogation from various departments within her own company and was outed to her boss as a snitch. When she later asked for an internal transferto escape the hostility of her coworkers, she was told she could find the transfer herself or quit.

Given the factors above, what ethical criteria will you use to determine your path of action?