ACCA考试辅导：历年考试问题分析4

　　 高顿网校小编为各位ACCA学员整理了历年真题的问题分析，希望大家查漏补缺，对考试有所帮助。
         1．（a）Explain the situations where an auditor may disclose confidential information about a client. （8 marks）

　　（b）You are an audit manager in McKay & Co, a firm of Chartered Accountants. You are preparing the engagement letter for the audit of Ancients, a public limited liability company, for the year ending 30 June 2006. Ancients has grown rapidly over the past few years, and is now one of your firm’s most important clients.

　　Ancients has been an audit client for eight years and McKay & Co has provided audit, taxation and management consultancy advice during this time. The client has been satisfied with the services provided, although the taxation fee for the period to 31 December 2005 remains unpaid.

　　Audit personnel available for this year’s audit are most of the staff from last year, including Mr Grace, an audit partent and Mr jones, an audit senior. Mr Grace has been the audit partner since Ancients became an audit client. You are aware that Allyson Grace, the daughter of Mr Grace, has recently appointed the financial director at Ancients.

　　To celebrate her new appointment, Allyson has suggested taking all of the audit staff out to an expensive restaurant prior to the start of the audit work for this year.

　　Ldentify and explain the risks to independence arising in carrying out your audit of Ancients for the year ending 30 june 2006, and suggest ways of mitigating each of the risks you identify. （12 marks）

　　２．（a）Confidential information

　　General rules

　　Information obtained during an audit is normally held to be confidential; that is it will not be disclosed to a third party.

　　However, client information may be disclosed where:

　　— Consent has been obtained form the client

　　— There is a public duty to disclose or

　　— There is a legal or professional right or duty to disclose.

　　However, these rules are general principles only; more detailed guidance is also available to accountants, as explained below.

　　ACCA’s Code of ethics-obligator disclosure

　　As noted aboue, ACCA’s Code of ethics confirms that when a member agrees to work for a client in a professional capacity, it is an implied term of that agreement that the member will not disclose a client’s affairs to any other person.

　　The recognised exceptions to this rule are where a member knows or suspects that his client has committed treason, or is involved in drug trafficking or terrorist offences. In this situation, intormation must be disclosed to a competent authority. The actual disclosure will depend on the laws of the jurisdiction where the auditor is located.

　　The auditor may also be obliged to provide information where a court demands disclosure. Refusal to provide information is likely to be considered contempt of court with the auditor being liable for this offence.

　　ACCA Code of ethics – voluntary disclosure

　　A member may also disclose client confidential information voluntarily, that is without client permission, in a limited number of situations.

　　- To protect a member’s interest e.g. to allow a member to sue a client for unpaid fees or defend an action for negligence.

　　- Where there is a public duty to disclose e.g. the client has committed an action alainst the public interest such as unauthorised release of toxic chemicals.

　　（b）Independence risks

　　Mr Grace has been the audit partner of Ancients for eight years. His obijectivity for the audit may be threatened by the ongoing close relationship with the client. In other words, he may be too friendly with the directors of Ancients. This means he may not be willing or able to take difficult decisions such as issuing a nodified audit report for fear of prejudicing his friendship with the directors. Rotating the audit partner world remove this threat.

　　Ancients has not paid the taxation fees for work that took place nearly six months ago. The non-payment of fees can be a threat to objectivity similar to that of an unpaid loan. In effect, MacKay is providing Ancients with an interest free lan. The audit partner in McKay may not wish to issue a modified report for fear that the client leaves and the ‘loan’is not repaid. The unpaid fee must be discussed with the directors in Ancients and reasons for non-payment obtained. McKay may wish to delay strating the audit work for this year until the fee is paid to remove the potential independence problem. If the fee is not paid at all then McKay may decline to carry out the audit.

　　No details are provided regarding fee income obtained form Ancients. Howver, the company is growing rapidly and McKay does provide other services besides audit. As a limited liability company, McKay should ensure that no more than 10% of its recurring pratice income （including auditing, accountancy and other work combined）is derived form this cliend. Obtaining more than 10% could indicate undue financia reliance on one client, and inpair objectivity regarding the audit report（again fear of issuing a modified report and losing the fee income from the audit client）. If the 10% linit is close, McKay may have to limit other services provided so that independence is not impaired. An annual review will be required on clients where the fee is between 5 and 10% to ensure that the fee income rules will not be breached.

　　Allyson Grace is not deemed to be connected to Mr Grace because she is presumably over the age of 18. If she was still a minor, then there would be a connection and it would be inappropriate for Mr Grace to be the audit partner as he could in theory influence Allyson’s decisions. However, there may still appera to be an independence problem as Mr Grace may not be objective in making audit decisions. He may not wish to annoy his daughter by having to qualify the financial statements. Appointing another audit partner would remove the perceived independence problem.

　　The offer of a meal by Allyson may appear to be a threat to independence; having received an expensive meal, the audit staff may be favourably disposed towards Ancients and be less inclined to investigate potential errors. Audit staff are allowed to receive modest benefits on commercial terms; whether there is a benefit depends on how expensive the meal is. To ensure no independence issues it would appear that the invitation should be declined. One possible option world be for Mr Grace and Allyson to pay personally as a purely social event even though this may be unlikely. However this does not remnoe the impled independence issue.

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