Accountingweb in the USA reports that KPMG have done a survey on the effectiveness of audit committees. Since the survey was of the members of such committees perhaps it wasn't surprising to find that most thought they were doing good job.

Even so, many thought there was still room for improvement. In particular the following needed attention:

Oversight of internal controls (36 percent)
Financial reporting implications of taxes (59 percent)
Fraud risk (61 percent) and
Information security (78 percent)

I am sure they are right. I've read more sets of accounts of more quoted companies than most people in the last year or so as a result of the work I did on Mind the Tax Gap.

And if you want an example of how bad tax reporting gets have a look at the hash Reuters have made of it under IFRS in 2005. In 2004 I reckoned their figures were amongst the better ones available. Under IFRS they're nonsense.

Which means I reckon the workload of UK audit committees just increased somewhat more.

Thanks to Dennis Howlett for the hat tip.