Carcello Carllingsworth And Mastrolia

Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 to restore investor confidence by requiring public companies to strengthen corporate governance through several mechanisms, including enhanced disclosure on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting (ICFR). As claimed by regulators, the disclosures on the effectiveness of ICFR are aimed at improving the quality of financial reporting, which would, in turn, reduce the information asymmetry for investors in U.S. capital markets” (Donaldson). Sarbanes- Oxley named after its creators, Senator Paul Sarbanes, D-Md and Congressman Michael Oxley, R-Ohio. Enacted in 2002 with the purpose to crack down on corporate fraud. The implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley led to the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to oversee the accounting industry. It was created to eliminate corporate fraud, and it put in place a ban on company loans to executives while also giving job protection to whistleblowers. Before SOX was put into place the accounts were a self-regulated profession, such as medical professionals and lawyers. This is what led to the fraudulent actions of major institutions, people can be greedy, and they need checks and balances to ensure the fidelity of the firm. There are criminal enhanced penalties for corporate fraud and related misdeeds, this brings justice to the sector as well as working as a deterrent for additional immoral

Scoping and Evaluation Judgments in the Audit of Internal Control over Financial Reporting 12.1 EyeMax Corporation . . Evaluation of Audit Differences

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate (Louwers & Reynolds, 2007). We believe that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.

However, the application of SOX has brought on regulations that public companies must put in place and follow to prohibit these unethical occurrences. One major advantage for associated with SOX is that more thorough audits are being conducted by auditing firms. Audits being conducted more thoroughly will provide accuracy and an increased reliability of financial data. This will affect taxes in a positive way and provide firms with an advantage. Causholli, Chambers, and Payne (2014) suggest that prior to the implementation of SOX in 2002, “an auditor’s opportunity to sell additional non-audit services in the subsequent year, coupled with the client’s willingness to buy services, intensified the economic bond between auditor and client, in turn reducing auditor independence and the quality of financial reporting” (p.681). The regulation of auditor provided non-audit tax services has increased the reliability of tax and financial reporting within companies. Seetharaman, Sun, and Wang (2011) explain that “in a post-Sarbanes-Oxley environment, the benefits of auditor-provided non-audit tax services (NATS) seem to manifest themselves in higher quality tax-related financial statement management assertions” (p. 677).

This research paper is being submitted on March 10, 2013, for Tiffany Krogman, A340/ACG3085 Section 03, Advanced Auditing Concepts & Standards.

We find no difference in audit quality between these two samples. Second, we compare the mandatory rotation sample with itself one year earlier (2003) (the mandatory rotation sample in the prior year). We find that the audit quality of companies in the mandatory rotation sample under new audit partners is lower than the audit quality of these same companies one year earlier under old audit partners. Third, we compare our mandatory rotation sample with companies in years before 2003 whose audit partners were voluntarily rotated within the same audit firm (the voluntary rotation sample). We again find no difference in audit quality between these two samples. In sum, we find no support for the belief that mandatory audit partner rotation enhances audit quality. Our findings are robust to various sensitivity checks. Next, we examine the effect of mandatory audit partner rotation on investor perceptions of audit quality, using the earnings response coefficient (ERC) as a proxy for perceived audit quality (Teoh and Wong 1993; Ghosh and Moon 2005), After controlling for common determinants of the ERC, we find that the ERC of the mandatory rotation sample is not significantly different from that of the nonrotation sample or that of the mandatory rotation sample in the prior year, but is significantly larger than the ERC of the voluntary rotation sample. Overall, we find no consistent support for the belief that mandatory

The purpose of this report is to research the accounting and reporting standards of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and report the impact FASB may have on our company. The following research explains the history and purpose of FASB, the accountability requirements on public corporations, the effectiveness of FASB in setting standards in order to improve financial reporting in the public

SOX mandated an evaluation of the effectiveness of a company’s internal controls by both management and the company’s external auditor and formal written opinions about the effectiveness of those controls. In doing this evaluation, managers and auditors are required to examine a broad range of internal controls over financial reporting. The existence of a single material weakness requires managers and auditors to conclude that the company’s internal controls are not effective. SOX has had positive effects on both the quality of financial reporting and the quality of firm’s MCS. With SOX, the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures are improved. Also the federal government continues to refine SOX

The goals of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are expansive, including the improvement of the quality of audits in an attempt to eliminate fraud in order to protect the public’s interest, as well as for the protection of the investors (Donaldson, 2003). Prior to the implementation of SOX auditors were self-regulated with consumers reliant on their honesty and integrity. However, the auditing profession failed at self-regulation, thus necessitating the implementation of a security measure that would protect the investors and the

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002, aims to combat fraud, improve the reliability of financial reporting and restores investor confidence. Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley emphasize the management’s responsibility in maintaining a sound internal-control structure of financial reporting and assessing its own effectiveness. While the auditors’ responsibility is to attest to the soundness of management’s assessment and to report on the state of the overall financial control system. Although it has been a question by most executives, however, some approached the new law with gratitude. As SOX went into effect, more executives had realized the need for internal reforms; they were startled by the weaknesses and gaps of their internal control that compliance reviews and assessments had exposed.

The survey found that companies with $4 billion or more in revenues are spending an average of $35 million to comply with the act (Henry et. al, p. 28). In a separate survey, Financial Executives International found $3.1 million in additional costs for companies with average revenues of $2.5 billion. According to Koehn and Del Vecchio (2004), significant increases in salaries may be attributed to the cost of compliance (p. 36). In 2003, a 6% increase in finance and a 10% increase in management salaries were noted (Koehn & Del Vecchio, p.36). Audit fees assigned by the top four auditing companies climbed by 25% to 33% since the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley. A May 2003 survey by Financial Executives International forecasted an additional 35% increase in audit fees by mid-2004. There should be no doubt about why private companies are dodging SOX. The expense of compliance is becoming astronomical. For a private company that is trying to keep its head above water, compliance may be the factor that sinks the ship.

The requirements in these newly-issued risk standards represent significant changes to the standards governing audits of financial statements. They enable the auditors to focus more clearly on areas where there is a greater risk of misstatement of the financial statements. The belief is that these risk standards will increase audit quality. This is as a result of better risk assessments through a more detailed understanding of the entity and its environment, including internal control, and improved design and performance of audit procedures to respond to assessed risks of material misstatements. The improved linkage of audit procedures and assessed risks is expected to result in a greater concentration of audit effort on areas where there is a greater risk of material misstatements.

ABSTRACT: Recent accounting scandals have resulted in regulatory initiatives designed to strengthen audit committee oversight of corporate financial reporting and have led to a concern that U.S. GAAP has become too rules-based. We examine issues related to these initiatives using two experiments. CFOs in our experiments exhibit

The objective of this study is to evaluate audit tenure, industry specialization, and firm size and its correlation to financial restatements. A client’s restatements suggest low audit quality because it indicates that the client’s financial statements are not in line with GAAP. I analyzed a sample of 250 firm-year restatements from public companies during 2008 to 2012. I gathered the data using COMPUSTAT and AuditAnalytics. For my results, I have found that auditor tenure has a negative correlation with financial restatement. I also found that industry expertise has a negative correlation with financial restatements. Further, it appears that firm size has no correlation with financial restatements. In conclusion, it turns out my

Convincing arguments can be made that the introduction of mandatory auditor rotation enhance auditor independence that really improves the audit quality. In fact, audit firms are economically bonded to its clients as there is a financial rewards associated with keeping a long term relationship with an audit client. In order to maintain the longer period of audit firms tenure, auditors might be enticed to overlook the issue of financial reporting such as earning management. Moreover, this financial rewards also lead to auditors who lose objectivity in periodic audit engagements. Therefore, auditor rotation may hold auditor back long term relationships with audit clients from developing(Porter et al.,2014). It may lower the earning management and managing to earnings targets owing to auditor rotation rules reducing the threats to auditor independence. This point can be illustrated by a study which shows evidence of less earning management and less managing to earnings targets from Italy, South Korea, and Brazil compared to the sample before introduction of mandatory auditor rotation(Harris and Whisenant, 2012). Plenty of