會計師公費、審計意見與穩健會計之關聯性

Abstract

穩健原則(conservatism)是編製財務報表的重要特性之一。雖然IASB認為穩健原則與中立性的品質特性具有衝突，因此在財務會計準則觀念性架構中不再包括穩健性或審慎性的品質特性，然而財務報表的編製受到穩健原則的影響甚深。 先前文獻大多從穩健原則的效益面與成本面進行探討，而本研究則是以審計市場的角度研究穩健原則，分別探討穩健原則是否會影響會計師公費及會計師簽發標準式無保留意見的機率。本文以我國2002年至2014年共計十三個年度之台灣上市、上櫃公司為研究樣本進行分析，並以Khan and Watts(2009)透過Basu(1997)盈餘時效不對稱模型改良之C-Score來衡量公司的穩健程度。 研究結果顯示，當公司的穩健程度越高時，則會計師所收取的公費就越低，且出具標準式無保留意見之可能性越高，符合本研究之預期。

Conservatism is one of the important characteristics for financial reporting. IASB argues that conservatism is incompatible with neutrality, and therefore the conceptual frameworks for financial reporting do not include conservatism as desirable qualities of financial reporting information. However, the preparation of financial statements is still greatly influenced by conservatism. Prior literature usually examines conservatism from benefit or cost viewpoints, however, this study, based on audit market viewpoint, investigates the relationship between audit fees, audit opinions and conservatism from 2002 to 2014 in Taiwan. In addition, this study adopts Khan and Watts (2009)’s C-Score to measure firm’s conservatism level to examine the research hypotheses. The empirical results indicate a significantly negative association between conservatism level and audit fees, suggesting firms with greater conservatism have lower audit fees. In addition, the empirical results also show a significantly positive association between conservatism level and the possibility to issue unqualified-standard opinions, consisting with our expectation, which suggests that firms with greater conservatism are more likely to receive unqualified audit opinion.