Auditor independence, non-audit services, and restatements: Was the US government right?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kinney, WR Jr; Palmrose, ZV; Scholz, S
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; University of Southern California; University of Kansas
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-8456
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-679X.2004.t01-1-00141.x
• 发表日期: 2004
• 页码: 561-588
• 关键词: fees; RISK

摘要

Do fees for non-audit services compromise auditor's independence and result in reduced quality of financial reporting? The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 presumes that some fees do and bans these services for audit clients. Also, some registrants voluntarily restrict their audit firms from providing legally permitted non-audit services. Assuming that restatements of previously issued financial statements reflect low-quality financial reporting, we investigate detailed fees for restating registrants for 1995 to 2000 and for similar nonrestating registrants. We do not find a statistically significant positive association between fees for either financial information systems design and implementation or internal audit services and restatements, but we do find some such association for unspecified non-audit services and restatements. We find a significant negative association between tax services fees and restatements, consistent with net benefits from acquiring tax services from a registrant's audit firm. The significant associations are driven primarily by larger registrants.