(Solution) - State boards of accountancy in the United States have allowed -(2025 Original AI-Free Solution)
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State boards of accountancy in the United States have allowed accounting firms and individual CPAs to advertise for approximately three decades. Identify the pros and cons of allowing professionals to advertise. In your opinion, should professional accountants be allowed to advertise and otherwise market their services?
The spice trade first brought European explorers, most notably the Portuguese adventurer Vasco da Gama, to the shores of the Indian subcontinent in the late fifteenth century. In the mid-eighteenth century, Great Britain used a series of military excursions to gain control over several major Indian provinces and effectively made the country the largest colony within its far-flung empire. For almost a century, Britain's colonial rule of the country was administered through the infamous British East India Company. After Great Britain thwarted the bloody Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British East India Company was abolished and India became subject to direct rule by the British monarchy. Periodic rebellions, civil unrest, and ultimately the massive civil disobedience campaign orchestrated by Mahatma Gandhi culminated in India gaining its independence from Great Britain in August 1947.
Britain's colonial rule would leave a lasting imprint on all aspects of Indian society, including its economy, financial reporting system, and accounting profession. During the two centuries that Britain controlled India, a large number of British citizens immigrated to India seeking opportunities in banking, insurance, accounting, and other financial services industries and professions. Alexander Fletcher Ferguson arrived in India in the late 1880s. A few years later, he organized A. F. Ferguson & Co., which would become one of India's most prominent professional services organizations and its largest accounting firm.
Native Indians typically did not welcome British immigrants who, like Ferguson, often took advantage of their British "connections" to further their careers and otherwise elevate their social status. Making matters worse, the new immigrants often treated Indians as second-class citizens in their own country. Not surprisingly, after India gained its independence, an isolationist mindset prevailed in the country. Because of that mindset, India's central government established protectionist policies to prevent foreign companies, professional firms, and other organizations from dominating the new nation's economy. These policies included significant tariffs on imported goods, limits on equity investments in Indian companies by foreign nationals, and, most important, the so-called "License Raj." The License Raj was an extensive set of government rules and regulations established by India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, which gave India's central government effective control over the nation's economy.
Under the License Raj, any major business venture proposed by a domestic or foreign entity had to be approved by a central government planning commission.