IAASB’s forslag til en ny revisionserklæring: Og dennes indflydelse på forventnings- og forståelseskløften

Abstract

Within auditing an expectation-performance gap exists. This gap arises because of the difference between the expectations of the financial statement users to auditor’s function and the work that auditor has to perform to satisfy generally accepted auditing practice. Furthermore, the financial statement users need an overall understanding of auditing and contents in an audit, which makes it difficult for financial statements users to read and understand auditor’s report. This is not appropriately, as the auditor’s report is the auditor’s only way to communicate with the financial statement users. This expectation-performance gap and the financial crisis have led to a demand for improvement of the auditor’s report, as it is today. There is a demand for improved communication between the auditor and the financial statement users as well as improved transparency regarding material balance sheet items and the performed audit. Based on this demand the European Commission has proposed Article 22, which contains the Commission’s suggestions and requirements to auditor’s report. These suggestions and requirements are prepared on the basis of the Commission’s Green Paper from 2010. In an invitation to comment IAASB has set out the indicative directions proposed for the future auditor’s report. The proposed future auditor’s report contains the following paragraphs: Opinion, Basis for Opinion, Going Concern, Auditor Commentary, Other Information and Respective Responsibilities of Management and the Auditor. IAASB prefers this ranking. In the proposed future auditor’s report IAASB has excluded more of the requirements that the European Commission states in Article 22. Interested parties all over the world have sent their views in response to IAASB’s invitation to comment. We have chosen some of these responses for analyze in this thesis. Based on the mentioned issues we have analyzed and assessed IAASB’s proposed future auditor’s report regarding its ability to reduce the expectation-performance gap as well as the differences between IAASB’s proposed future auditor’s report and the requirements in the European Commission’s proposed Article 22. Furthermore, we have included the responses to IAASB’s invitation to comment, to be able to assess if the expectation-performance gap can be reduced due to the above mentioned proposals.