Preliminary communication
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISCLOSURE OF AUDIT FEE AMOUNTS AND NUMBER OF REPORTED KEY AUDIT MATTERS
Toni Šušak
; Sveučilišni odjel za forenzične znanosti Sveučilišta u Splitu
Mario Filipović
; BDO Croatia d.o.o. za pružanje revizorskih, konzalting i računovodstvenih usluga, Zagreb
Abstract
Improvements to International Standards on Auditing have resulted in the expansion of the independent auditor's report and the introduction of a new section containing key audit matters, with intention to increase the informativeness of mentioned report. On the other hand, due to the lack of legal sanctions, many companies in the Republic of Croatia do not publish the amount of fees for auditing services. Therefore it is possible to classify them using that fact. The aim of this research is to analyze the relationship between the disclosure of the amount of fees for auditing services and the number of reported key audit matters as part of the independent auditor's report, which, to the authors' knowledge, has not been the subject of research. The research sample includes non-financial companies whose shares were listed on the trading segment of the Regulated Market of the Zagreb Stock Exchange. The data required for statistical analysis were collected from the annual financial statements, the annual questionnaires of the Corporate Governance Code and the independent auditors' reports, which are publicly available on the official website of the Zagreb Stock Exchange. The analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, and multiple regression model. The results indicate that there is no statistically significant difference in the number of reported key audit matters between companies that have publicly disclosed the amounts of fees paid to external auditors for performed audits and other services compared to companies that have not publicly disclosed amounts of fees paid to external auditors for performed audits and other services, as well as the lack of a statistically significant relationship between the disclosure of the amount of fees for auditor services and the number of reported key audit matters.
Keywords
disclosure of audit fees, key audit matters, auditor independence.
Hrčak ID:
241610
URI
Publication date:
27.7.2020.
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