審計品質與異常審計公費關聯性之實證研究

An Empirical Study on the Relationship Between Audit Quality and Abnormal Audit Fees

陳麗如(Li-Ju Chen)

指導教授 ： 林嬋娟

國立臺灣大學/管理學院/會計學研究所/碩士(2007年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2007.00455

摘要

本研究主要目的在於檢視我國會計師是否會因受查客戶支付高於或低於正常審計公費水準之公費，亦即異常審計公費，而折損其獨立性，給予受查客戶管理當局較大之盈餘裁量空間，進而影響審計品質。

在民國91至94年四個年度，共406筆的樣本資料裡，當會計師收取高於正常審計公費水準之公費，亦即存在正向異常審計公費之情形下，本研究並未發現會計師會因此而折損其獨立性，進而降低審計品質之現象。

在負向異常審計公費之樣本群組中，由於研究樣本係受限於符合一定揭露規範之上市櫃公司，且可得樣本之期間僅有民國91至94年度，最終可得樣本數偏低，因而導致在負向異常審計公費與審計品質兩者關聯性之實證結果中，僅在以市場別為審計公費估計基礎時，發現兩者呈現負向顯著關聯性，而在整體樣本及以產業別為審計公費估計基礎時，雖然兩者呈負向關聯性，但此一關聯性並不顯著，實證結論之穩健性尚有待提升，因此，在台灣審計市場中，負向異常審計公費之存在，對審計品質之影響尚無法有其定論。

但彙總而言，由於負向異常審計公費甚至大於正向異常審計公費之影響，致使當以整體樣本為測試對象時，使得會計師會因異常審計公費之增加，而減少受查客戶從事盈餘管理之幅度，異常審計公費與審計品質兩者間呈現負向顯著關聯性。

關鍵字

異常審計公費 ； 裁決性應計數 ； 審計品質 ； 會計師獨立性

並列摘要

This paper examines whether, and how, audit quality proxied by absolute value of discretionary accruals is associated with the abnormal audit fees, i.e., the difference between actual audit fees and expected fees.

Using a sample of 406 firm-year observations over the period of 2002-2005, the results of various regressions reveal that the association between the two is insignificantly positive for the subsample of clients with positive abnormal fees.For the result of subsample of clients with positive abnormal fees, it is consistent with the viewpoints of reputational capital (DeFond et al., 2002). However, the positive abnormal audit fee may not exactly represent the economic dependency effect between auditors and clients. The statistical insignificance may be attributed to constraints of model of normal audit fees.

Also, as evidenced by the regression results of subsample of clients with negative abnormal fees, different results are observed under different methods in estimating the level of abnormal audit fee. With subsample separated by transaction market, stock exchange or over the counter, the association between the absolute value of discretionary accruals and abnormal audit fees is significantly negative. However, with subsample separated by industry, the association between the two is insignificantly negative. Besides, similar insignificant results are found with overall sample. The different statistical outputs are resulted from the available samples which were restricted by present regulations. Therefore, we conclude that the empirical results are not robust enough to infer how the audit quality is affected by negative abnormal audit fee in auditing market of Taiwan.

Collectively, because the influence of negative abnormal audit fees is greater than positive ones, the association between the abnormal audit fee and audit quality is significantly negative for the full sample.

並列關鍵字

abnormal audit fees ； discretionary accruals ； audit quality ； auditor independence

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