关于非审计服务的思考

随着信息时代的到来,会计师事务所向客户提供非审计服务已成为一种世界潮流。但是继安然事件之后,业界再度引发了对注册会计师在提供审计与非审计服务时能否保持独立性的质疑。本文在分析非审计服务的产生原因及其对独立性的影响基础上,提出了规范注册会计师提供非审计服务的途径。     

谈影响CPA审计独立性的原因及完善途径

独立是注册会计师的灵魂,独立原则是注册会计师职业道德准则中最基础的原则,是客观公正原则及其他职业道德规范的基础.没有独立性,注册会计师审计就失去了存在的意义.市场经济的进一步发展,对注册会计师的执业要求也达到了一个更高的阶段,更加强调注册会计师的职业道德和其应负的法律责任问题.为了提高注册会计师的职业道德,为了降低审计风险,避免法律责任,也要求注册会计师首先应具有真正意义上的独立性.那么,独立性受到影响的原因是什么,如何提高注册会计师的独立性.本文拟从以下两方面进行阐述.     

浅议社会审计的政府委托模式

社会审计又称为“独立审计”．独立性是其精髓所在．是注册会计师诚信的根本保障。各国注册会计师职业道德规范都对独立性进行了详细的规定，要求注册会计师从形式到实质保持独立．尤其是独立于被审计单位。但事实上，我国社会审计的委托模式存在着严重的制度缺陷．导致注册会计师从根本上丧失了独立性。     

论提高注册会计师独立审计质量

独立性是注册会计师审计的灵魂，独立审计质量直接关系到注册会计师行业的生存和发展。     

强化注册会计师审计独立性建设探析

会计师事务所是否有足够的能力保持自身以及注册会计师的独立性,是决定审计独立性的内在因素。本文从影响注册会计师审计独立性的因素进行切入,重点从对注册会计师审计独立性影响最大的两个方面,也就是会计师事务所和中注协进行对策分析。     

提高注册会计师审计独立性的办法

1．提高会计师事务所保持审计独立性的能力 会计师事务所是注册会计师审计主体的一个层面，其审计独立性是注册会计师审计独立性基本内容之一。注册会计师在会计师事务所工作并以事务所的名义承接业务，注册会计师的独立性和事务所的独立性相互影响。会计师事务所是否有足够的能力保持自己及其注册会计师的独立性，是决定注册会计师审计独立性的内在因素。     

审计聘任机制研究

审计聘任机制也称注册会计师聘任机制,是指企业在聘任会计师事务所和注册会计师作为其财务报表审计人时的各种规定的总称。注册会计师必须独立于委托人和被审计人,是审计聘任机制的核心问题。研究近年来审计失败的案例不难发观,导致审计失败的一个共有的、也是最重要的原因就是审计独立性遭到破坏。     

审计委托关系对审计独立性的影响及对策

审计委托关系之所以重要,关键在于其直接关系到审计独立性问题。审计委托模式决定了审计关系中的经济利益,而经济利益则决定了注册会计师保持独立性的程度。实践表明,注册会计师审计失败与审计独立性丧失有关,而注册会计师审计独立性丧失的根本原因在于现行审计委托模式存在问题。     

提高注册会计师审计独立性的思考

独立性是注册会计师行业存在的前提.但在现实社会中,注册会计师的独立性屡屡受到侵害,笔者从我国注册会计师审计独立性的含义入手,对我国注册会计师审计独立性缺失原因进行分析,并提出了几点改进措施.     

注册会计师独立审计的博弈分析

当前我国注册会计师的独立审计服务质量不高已是一个不争的事实,文章认为作为一个理性的经济人注册会计师之所以未能提供高质量的审计服务与其所面临的审计执业环境有关.注册会计师独立审计在多方参与人之间进行着博弈,在不同的执业环境下形成不同的博弈支付矩阵,注册会计师会选择自己的最优策略,最终影响到审计质量.为此,要改变注册会计师的策略行为使其选择如实出具审计意见的诚信行为,需要改变注册会计师在与独立审计多方参与人之间进行的博弈矩阵支付.文章分析了三个最重要的方面:不同注册会计师之间的博弈;注册会计师与企业管理当局之间的博弈.注册会计师与监管当局之间的博弈.并根据分析的结果提出相应的建议.     

Nonaudit Services and Earnings Conservatism: Is Auditor Independence Impaired?*

We examine whether the provision of nonaudit services (NAS) by incumbent auditors is associated with a reduction in the extent to which earnings reflect bad news on a timely basis (that is, news‐based conservatism). Reduced conservatism is expected to occur if relatively high levels of NAS result in reduced auditor independence and, ultimately, lower‐quality auditing. Because client‐specific demand for NAS is expected to vary, our proxy for the auditor‐client economic bond is the extent to which NAS purchases (relative to audit fees) are greater or less than expected. Using several different methods for identifying news‐based conservatism, we consistently find that higher than expected levels of NAS are not associated with reduced conservatism. This result is robust to allowing for endogenous NAS demand, as well as several explicit factors that may be associated with differences in conservatism. Similar conclusions arise from tests that use alternative measures of the economic bond between auditors and their clients, as well as in tests confined to either the Big 6 or non‐Big 6 audit firms. Our results are consistent with factors such as market‐based incentives, the threat of litigation, and alternative governance mechanisms offsetting any expected benefits to the audit firm from reducing its independence. We therefore conclude that recent legislative intervention aimed at restricting the supply of NAS is unlikely to result in increased independence in fact, although independence in appearance may be improved.     

重大错报风险的评估与应对机制的建立

本文将探讨在上市公司审计中注册会计师如何应用重大错报风险这一新的理念,分析和研究审计过程中易于引起重大错报风险的领域及其应对方案,并结合案例阐述合理运用重大错报风险在评估和控制审计风险中的重要性,以有利于注册会计师更好地控制审计风险、提高审计质量。     

Auditor Fees and Fraud Firms

The issue of whether auditor fees affect auditor independence has been extensively debated by regulators, investors, investment professionals, auditors, and researchers. The revised Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements that resulted from the implementation of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (2002) limit nonaudit services (NAS) and mandate NAS fee disclosure. The SEC's requirements are based on the argument that auditor independence could be impaired—and hence audit quality may be reduced—when auditors become economically dependent on their clients or audit their own work. Economic bonding leads to reduced independence, which can lead to reduced audit quality. We study a sample of firms sanctioned by the SEC for fraudulent financial reporting in Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (SEC‐sanctioned fraud firms) and examine whether there is a relationship between auditor fee variables and the likelihood of being sanctioned by the SEC for fraud. We use SEC sanction as a measure of audit quality that has not previously been used in the auditor fee literature and is more precise than some of the other proxies used for flawed financial/auditor reporting. We find, in univariate tests, that fraud firms paid significantly higher (total, audit, and NAS) fees. However, in multivariate tests, when controlling for other fraud determinants and endogeneity among the fraud, NAS, and audit fee variables, we find that while NAS fees and total fees are positively and significantly related to the likelihood of being sanctioned by the SEC for fraud, audit fees are not. These findings suggest that higher NAS fees may cause economic bonding, thereby leading to reduced audit quality. Our findings of significantly higher NAS fees and total fees in fraud firms hold after controlling for latent size effects and other rigorous testing. These results contribute to the literature that examines the SEC's concerns regarding NAS and can be used by policy makers for additional consideration.     

会计师事务所受证监会处罚影响因素实证研究

近几年来我国频频出台政策促进会计师事务所通过合并重组扩大规模及从有限责任制向特殊普通合伙制转变来提高审计质量。规模的扩大和合伙制的组织形式,是否有利于会计师事务所审计质量的提高？本文从会计师事务所受证监会处罚的角度,实证考察会计师事务所的规模、组织形式和独立性对审计质量的影响。研究表明,会计师事务所的独立性和受到证监会的处罚负相关;采用合伙制的组织形式,更有助于提高会计师事务所的审计质量,防止事务所受到处罚;会计师事务所的规模和受到证监会的处罚并不显著负相关。     

An Economic Analysis of Audit and Nonaudit Services: The Trade‐off between Competition Crossovers and Knowledge Spillovers*

In this paper, I present a model in which both markets for audit services and nonaudit services (NAS) are oligopolistic. Accounting firms providing both audit services and NAS will employ oligopolistic competition in each of these markets. In addition to auditors' gaining “knowledge spillovers” from auditing to consulting or vice versa, oligopolistic competition in one market will influence the counterpart in the other market ‐ what I call “competition crossovers”. Although scope economies due to knowledge spillovers (for example, cost savings) are always beneficial to auditors, such benefits can entice accounting firms to adopt strategies (for example, price reductions) to compete aggressively in the audit market so that some, or all, firms become worse off. A trade‐off arises between these two economic forces in the two oligopolistic markets. Given the trade‐off between competition crossovers and knowledge spillovers, accounting firms may not reduce their audit prices, even though supplying NAS enables firms to decrease auditing costs — a nontrivial impact of oligopolistic competition in two markets on audit pricing. The empirical implication of my results is that because of competition‐crossover effects between the auditing and consulting service markets, finding empirical evidence for knowledge‐spillover benefits is likely to be difficult. Control variables for “audit‐market concentration” concerned with competition‐crossover effects and “auditor expertise” concerned with knowledge‐spillover benefits should be included in audit‐fee regressions to increase the power of empirical tests. With regard to policy implications, my analyses help explain the impact of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act on “market segmentation” and, hence, the profitability of accounting firms.     

我国上市公司内部审计的独立性研究

上市公司的有效治理必须有内部审计的参与,这已是国际、国内公司管理界和内部审计界的共识。当前由于大量的国内外上市公司造假案的涌现,内部审计的独立性越来越受到人们的重视。文章就此论题探讨其科学内涵,结合我国现状,研究如何加强上市公司内部审计的独立性。     

我国注册会计师行业发展阶段研究综述

注册会计师行业是市场经济发展到一定阶段的产物,其产生的制度基础是所有权与经营权的分离。我国注册会计师制度从产生至今经历了恢复重建、规范发展、体质创新和国际化四个发展阶段。目前,会计、审计行业国际趋同,注册会计师的国际化发展步伐很快。会计师事务所做大做强,"走出去"的发展战略成为我们研究和探讨的重要问题。     

Are Auditors Compromised by Nonaudit Services? Assessing the Evidence*

Ruddock, Taylor, and Taylor (2006) use an earnings conservatism framework to investigate the effects of nonaudit services (NAS) on earnings conservatism, and to test whether audit quality was impaired by NAS in Australia during the 1990s. They find no evidence of differential conservatism conditional on the level of NAS fees paid to auditors, and thus conclude that NAS have no adverse effect on audit quality. While this result may not extrapolate to the U.S. setting due to institutional difference between the two countries, the study does add to a growing body of empirical evidence that questions whether there is any logical rationale for restricting the scope of the services that auditors provide to their audit clients. In reviewing the NAS research literature over the past 40 years, one has to conclude that there is no “smoking gun” evidence linking the provision of nonaudit services with audit failures. However, the literature also finds that NAS can adversely affect the appearance of auditor independence, and this may be more than a “mere perception” problem, because there is also evidence that stock prices are significantly lower for companies that pay their auditors large fees for nonaudit services.     

我国民间审计独立性缺失的主要原因及防范对策

独立性是注册会计师审计的灵魂,决定着审计意见的客观、公正性。近年来,审计失败案件屡屡发生,给会计师事务所、企业和社会造成巨大损失,大量审计失败案件发生,反映了注册会计师审计缺乏独立性。本文结合我国实际,分析了审计失败中独立性缺失的原因,并提出了若干改善审计独立性的途径。     

审计市场集中度对市场绩效的影响——基于2002-2012中国证券市场的实证分析

通过对我国证券审计市场集中度的变化过程进行分析,发现证券审计市场集中度的提升主要是由于准入政策调整所致,市场机制并没有起到显著作用。但政府对证券审计市场准入条件的及时调整有效地缓解了集中度徘徊不前的状况。通过实证检验,进一步明确了集中度的提升有利于提高审计市场绩效,可以在一定程上缓解证券审计市场收费偏低、质量不高的问题。据此,文章提出要依靠政策与市场机制进一步提高审计市场集中度,同时加强对会计师事务所的监管。