SURVEY Fewer Americans trust accountants

The rash of corporate scandals has taken its toll.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- As if being the butt of jokes isn't enough.
Accountants, often mocked as a boring lot, have another battle to face: Fewer Americans trust them.
A new Gallup poll shows the year's corporate scandals have taken their toll -- accountants are considered less honest and ethical than a year ago.
This year, 35 percent of those polled said the accounting profession has either "high" or "very high" honesty and ethics, down from 41 percent a year ago.
The poll is Gallup's annual ranking of most-trusted professions. Of the 21 professions, nurses topped the list, followed by pharmacists, military officers, grade school/high school teachers and medical doctors. Accountants ranked 10th.
'Battered' profession
Charlotte accountant Hunter Cook has been in the accounting field since 1969. He's lived through the jokes about CPAs having no personality.
He's living through the days when clients quiz him on the profession's high-profile scandals. Now he goes home at night to see TV commercials for Heineken beer that show accountants dumping shredded paper out a high-rise -- and then warn that the beer is only "for those who have not been naughty."
"My field has been battered," said Cook, a partner with Crisp Hughes Evans. "Any time, whether you're a sports figure or an accountant, when a few people do things discreditable, the profession suffers."
Cook's retained his sense of humor about it all. After all, he's an auditor, probably one of the least-welcomed kind of accountants.
"No one voluntarily hires an auditor, only when there's an externally imposed requirement," he said. "Very few people open the doors and say 'Hot dog, the auditor's here!'"
"The surprise is that they were not as down as they could have been," said Frank Newport, Gallup poll editor-in-chief. "We thought they might drop more significantly. They're still [nearly] tied with bankers, for example. They maintained a shred of dignity."
The clergy had the biggest overall drop in rankings of ethics and trustworthiness, prompted by news of sexual abuse among some Catholic clergy, Newport said.
Among those polled, 52 percent said clergy are highly ethical, down from 64 percent last year, and at the lowest level in the last nine years Gallup has done its poll.
Among those professions ranked lower than accountants were congress members, building contractors, business executives and lawyers. Telemarketers came in last.
Concerned
Accountants are concerned about the erosion of trust in their field, Cook said. "Not only our profession, but really the entire economy depends on trust."
On a less-serious note, Cook took note that accountants once again outranked lawyers and that they didn't experience as steep a drop in public perception as did the clergy.
"I'm a CPA, and one of my sons is an attorney and the other is clergy," he said. "I'll be sure to share this."