Causes of accounting fraud and its treatment Abstract: This paper analyzes the causes of accounting fraud in some enterprises in China, and on this basis, puts forward corresponding countermeasures for different reasons, which has certain practical significance for curbing the increasingly serious accounting fraud in China. Keywords: accounting fraud; Reason; Since the establishment of China's securities market, financial reporting fraud scandals of listed companies have continued. From the earliest Yuan Ye, Qiongminyuan, Hong Guang, Zheng and Zhangjiajie to the Yinguangxia incident of 200 1, it reached its peak. Accounting fraud has become a major public hazard in China's economic life. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to explore and analyze the phenomenon and causes of accounting fraud, seek audit countermeasures and curb the repeated prohibition of accounting fraud cases. I. Analysis of the Causes of Accounting Fraud (I. Inadequate legal supervision) In recent years, China has formulated a series of laws and regulations in regulating the business behavior of listed companies, improving accounting and perfecting the accounting information disclosure system, and has also achieved certain results. However, because enterprise reform is still in the exploratory stage, the establishment of modern enterprise system has just started, and the development of capital market is still far from perfect. Therefore, in the face of the emerging new economic problems, the legal system construction is obviously lagging behind. It is particularly worth mentioning that, up to now, the relevant authorities in China have mainly relied on administrative means rather than legal means to deal with accounting fraud, and the punishment for violations is obviously insufficient. Even if fraud is detected, the punishment for counterfeiters can be said to be painless, but if it is not detected, it can also obtain considerable benefits. Therefore, the contrast between the huge temptation of illegal interests and the low opportunity cost makes many managers of listed companies willing to take risks, and accounting fraud is repeatedly prohibited. (2) The administrative supervision and management system is unreasonable and the supervision is ineffective. At present, the departments that supervise the financial accounting information of enterprises in China mainly include finance, auditing, CSRC, CBRC and CIRC, and these departments delimit the scope of supervision according to certain authority. The financial department shall supervise the financial accounting work of all enterprises in accordance with the provisions of the Accounting Law. According to the relevant laws and regulations, the audit department only conducts audit supervision on units involving state-owned assets, and at the same time divides the jurisdiction according to the subordinate relationship between state-owned assets and funds. The National Audit Office failed to supervise and correct the problems existing in the financial accounting of the second-and third-tier enterprises affiliated to the central enterprises and the central vertical units, and many violations of laws and regulations could not be corrected in time. In the process of stock listing, the CSRC has assumed an all-round role, which is not only responsible for the qualification examination of newly listed companies, but also responsible for the daily listing management, including the investigation and punishment of various violations of listed companies. As the "guardian" of China's capital market, CSRC does not want the listed companies' false financial and accounting information to trigger the capital market crisis. China Banking Regulatory Commission and China Insurance Regulatory Commission are also bound by the principle of cost-effectiveness, so it is impossible to have enough manpower and material resources to investigate everything, nor should they be so narrow that no violations occur. (III) Lack of effectiveness of social supervision From the perspective of social supervision, due to the lack of professional and technical level and professional ethics of accounting firms, it is difficult for independent audit to play its due supervisory role: First, the audit independence is insufficient. Independence is the core of auditors' professional ethics and an important feature of auditing. It is the basis for the audit results to gain public trust. The employment of accounting firms in China is actually decided by insiders, and the approval of shareholders' meeting is only a form. Insider entrusts the firm to conduct its own inspection, which undoubtedly weakens the auditor's independence. Second, the charging system is unscientific. In audit work, generally speaking, the time spent is positively related to the quality of practice. Therefore, in order to ensure the quality of practice, the international practice is to charge audit fees according to the audit time, while the current charging system in China is linked to the company's total assets or net assets, but decoupled from the audit time. In this case, in order to balance their own cost-effectiveness, certified public accountants often unreasonably shorten the audit time, and sometimes reduce the necessary audit procedures, so as to sacrifice the quality of practice in exchange for the increase of their own economic interests. Third, the overall professional quality of auditors is not good. At present, there are some certified public accountants with excellent professional quality in China, which constitute the backbone of the audit industry, but from the overall quality of audit practitioners, it is not optimistic. In addition, accounting firms do not pay enough attention to the follow-up education of certified public accountants, which makes many audit practitioners have weak theoretical foundation, single knowledge structure and insufficient professional ability. (iv) Accounting policies are not forward-looking. No set of accounting standards and accounting system is perfect, which can cover all businesses in accounting practice. They can only put forward basic norms and principles for accounting work, and most of them are just summaries of previous accounting practices. Whenever many new situations, new fields and new industries appear, it is always difficult to find a suitable accounting standard or system as the basis of accounting operation. In other words, statutory accounting policies often lag behind the development of accounting practice, which makes companies handle new business according to their own ideas and take their own goals as the standard, which provides opportunities for the breeding of accounting fraud; On the other hand, because the accounting system and accounting standards are generally principled provisions, professional understanding and professional judgment of accountants are needed to guide practical work. When accountants have the impulse to cheat, they will use different understandings of accounting policies to make seemingly correct accounting treatments, but in fact they are wrong. This kind of accounting fraud is often extremely deceptive. (V) Imperfect corporate governance structure The corporate governance structure is an organizational structure formed by the owners, the board of directors and senior managers in accordance with the rights and responsibilities stipulated by national laws under the condition of separation of ownership and management rights. It is an institutional arrangement to deal with all kinds of contracts within the company and coordinate and standardize the relationship between the stakeholders of the company. Most listed companies in China are restructured from former state-owned enterprises. Due to the short time of restructuring and listing, the company is still seriously affected by the traditional economic system, so the effective corporate governance structure is still not perfect.