{"id":44553,"date":"2019-03-11T09:25:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T09:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=44553"},"modified":"2019-03-11T09:25:17","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T09:25:17","slug":"audit-and-accountancy-are-in-need-of-real-reform-not-an-odd-change-in-semantics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/03\/11\/audit-and-accountancy-are-in-need-of-real-reform-not-an-odd-change-in-semantics\/","title":{"rendered":"Audit and accountancy are in need of real reform, not an odd change in semantics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FT has noted this morning<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

After a string of embarrassing failures, the Big Four accounting firms are turning to the thesaurus for help.<\/p>\n

In describing the companies they audit, the word \u201cclient\u201d is out of favour and auditors are looking for alternatives that may be clunkier but vaunt their independence.<\/p>\n

KPMG \u2013 which has received the harshest\u00a0criticism<\/a>\u00a0over the quality of its audits over the past 18 months \u2013 is the first of the Big Four to have introduced a formal policy that requires staff to refer to the companies it audits as an \u201caudited company\u201d or \u201caudited entity\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If they seriously think that this changes anything they are as deluded as HM Revenue & Customs were when they started calling taxpayers 'customers'.<\/p>\n

The reform we need is fundamental.<\/p>\n

And, the first is to realise that auditing is not just for shareholders: it's for all stakeholders. As I argue for the Corporate Accountability Network<\/a>, these are:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 \u00a0 Investors and the suppliers of capital to companies;
\n2.\u00a0 \u00a0 Those with whom, the company trades;
\n3.\u00a0 \u00a0 Employees;
\n4.\u00a0 \u00a0 Regulators;
\n5.\u00a0 \u00a0 Tax authorities;
\n6.\u00a0 \u00a0 Civil society, with all its varying interests.<\/p>\n

This is a vastly\u00a0broader group than KPMG are suggesting. As a result they remain way behind the curve of where their thinking needs to be.<\/p>\n

The need for both accounting and audit reform is real: changing a few semantics will not do. KPMG should take note, and the rest should not make this mistake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FT has noted this morning that: After a string of embarrassing failures, the Big Four accounting firms are turning to the thesaurus for help.
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,26,81,101,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountancy","category-accounting","category-auditing","category-big-4","category-kpmg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}