What exactly is accountant independence? I have established that accounting independence is very similar to being an independent auditor. When we talk about auditor independence, we are referring to the independence of the internal auditor or external auditor from parties who may have a financial interest in the entity being audited. The initial concept of auditor independence was developed in the 19th century, and originated primarily in Great Britain. At the time, British investors did not allow auditors to work in the companies they audited. The initial concept began to change in the early 20th century due to the shift of capital from foreign to domestic sources in railroads, mining, and the inventions of the telegraph and telephone. As time passed until the 1970s, the FASB established itself as an authoritative independent body for setting accounting standards. In the second half of the 20th century, there were ongoing debates about accounting independence. Thomas A. Lee, in Business Review, 3rd ed. (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986, page 89), stated: “An honest auditor will behave as someone who is independent, using independence to indicate a mental attitude that does not allow the holder's views and conclusions to become dependent or subordinate to the influence and pressures of conflicting interests.” This statement was indeed admirable, but it did not include the auditor's state of mind while auditing. On the other hand, P. Moizier, in “Independence” (in Current Issues in Auditing, Publishing Ltd., 1991), argued for an economic rationale for auditor independence. He said: “There is an expectation that the auditor has carried out an audit which will have reduced the chances of success of a negligence suit to a degree… half the paper… used fraudulent accounting methods to hide their earnings declining to create the illusion that they were growing financially. They underestimated overhead costs by capitalizing costs on the balance sheet instead of spending them appropriately and inflating revenues with bogus accounting entries from “unallocated corporate revenue accounts.” Exodus 23:1 says, “Do not spread false news. Do not help an evil man by being a malicious witness.” These people obviously did not abide by the Bible and what it says. They were trying to take the easy way out and once again it backfired. In 2002, President George Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act into law. This legislation was created in response to the high-profile Enron and WorldCom financial scandals to protect shareholders and the general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices in business.