關鍵查核事項與審計品質、審計成本之關聯性

Abstract

英國財務報告理事會(FRC)於2013年6月正式發布ISA (UK and Ireland) 700，其後國際審計及簽證準則委員會(IAASB)於2015年1月正式發布ISA 700、ISA 701等相關公報，新式查核報告改變過去二元式意見之查核報告，其中要求會計師揭露「關鍵查核事項」為準則中改變最大的部分。關鍵查核事項之溝通目的在於對會計師所執行之查核程序提供更高的透明度，使查核報告使用者能瞭解會計師之專業判斷以及受查者風險所在。為因應國際審計趨勢，我國會計研究發展基金會則在參考IAASB之ISA700、ISA701後，於2015年9月發布審計準則公報第五十七號「財務報表查核報告」、第五十八號「關鍵查核事項」等相關公報，並於2016年度上市、上櫃之財務報告正式適用。對於新式查核報告改革實施之效果，過去研究多採用英國樣本作為分析基礎，本研究係針對台灣首度實施年度之樣本進行實證研究，探討新式查核報告準則之實施對於審計品質與審計成本之影響。本研究分別以裁決性應計數、審計公費作為審計品質與審計成本之代理變數，並以前後年度分析與差異中之差異分析兩種模型進行研究。前後年度分析之實證結果顯示，準則實施後之審計品質、審計成本與實施前無顯著差異；而差異中之差異分析中，則發現首度適用者（上市、上櫃公司）在新式查核報告準則實施後，對於審計品質、審計成本之影響顯著高於非首度適用者（興櫃、非上市（櫃）之公開發行公司），且審計成本之提升於四大查核之首度適用者尤為明顯。另外，本研究亦未能發現關鍵查核事項之揭露個數與字數對於審計品質、審計成本之影響。

Since Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in U.K. issued ISA (UK and Ireland) 700 in June 2013, The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) released ISA 700-related standards in January 2015. The new audit standards have significantly changed the traditional standardized audit report, which just addressed pass or fail opinion. The biggest part of the change is the revised audit report, which requires auditors disclose “key audit matters”. The objective of communicating key audit matters is to provide greater transparency about the audit that was performed. Key audit matters can provide intended users to realize the auditors’ judgement and the clients’ risks. Responding to this auditing trend worldwide, Accounting Research and Development Foundation (ARDF) in Taiwan issued AU57-related standards since September 2015, which is officially adopted for TWSE-listed and TPEx-listed companies in 2016. Recent researches examining the effect of the new audit report are generally based on the data of U.K. premium listed companies. This study uses Taiwan’s adopters in 2016 to examine the effect of new standards on audit quality and audit costs, with discretionary accruals and audit fee as proxies of audit quality and audit costs, respectively. In the pre-post analyses, the results fail to find significant change on audit quality and audit costs after the implementation of new audit standards, while the results from the difference-in-difference analyses indicate that the increases in audit quality and audit costs for the first adopters are significantly higher than for the non-adopters, especially the increase in audit costs for adopters audited by Big 4. However, the results fail to show that the numbers and the length of KAMs are significantly related to audit quality and audit costs.