more than 10% of the client's equity. A member or any of their immediate family are not allowed to own more than 5% of the clients equity. For the period being audited, the auditor is not allowed to operate as an officer, director, manager, promoter, underwriter or voting trustee for the client. If a member leaves the auditing firm and is employed by the client, the entire firms independence is deemed to be impaired. If an audit member is made a job offer by the client and does not immediately report and remove themselves from the engagement, their independence is impaired. However, if the member does report the job offer and rejects it, and is no longer being considered for a position with the client, then their independence is not impaired. When the auditing member has a previous employment relationship with the client, barring certain exceptions, the auditor is required to liquidate any employee welfare programs that they have vested benefits in and collect or pay any loans outstanding to the client. The immediate family of the auditor is considered part of the test for impairment of independence. The exception to this is that the immediate family members of auditors are allowed to work for the client in non-management roles. If the auditor provides non-attest services such as tax support or consulting, they are required to adhere to the independence requirements of other regulatory bodies that govern those services. Failure to do so will impair their independence for their audit engagement as well. List of AICPA Code of Conduct and by-laws sections from AICPA Professional standards, 1974-2007 List of AICPA Code of Conduct and By-Laws Sections published as pamphlets, 1917-1997 References Codes of conduct Accounting in the United States