台灣企業會計師兼營非審計服務與查核意見之關聯性研究：以聯立迴歸實證分析

The Relationship between Non-audit Service Provision and Auditors' Opinions in Taiwanese Firms: An Application of Simultaneous Equations

蔡璧徽(Bi-Huei Tsai) ； 盧玥礽(Yueh-Reng Lu)

《東亞論壇》 463期 (2009/03) Pp. 95-109

https://doi.org/10.29705/EAR.200903.0007

摘要

安隆(Enron)公司案例凸顯「會計師兼辦其他業務」是審計與公司治理的重要議題，本研究即是同時考量審計供給面與需求面，採用聯立迴歸實證分析方法，探討會計師同時提供審計及非審計服務與會計師出具查核意見兩者間的交互影響；並進一步驗證「公開發行公司年報應行記載事項準則」第十一條第四項規範「公司財務報表應揭露會計師兼營重大非審計服務」的政策是否符合立法意旨。本研究先針對2002年至2006年6,040筆台灣上市公司作測試，研究結果發現會計師對同一客戶同時提供非審計服務且金額佔審計服務的比例重大，會計師較易出具標準式無保留意見，此外，受查公司公司治理差者，會計師又無提供重大的非審計服務，會計師會更傾向出具非標準式無保留意見，會計師基於未來面臨訴訟風險的威脅，將出具較保守的審計意見。尤其，非審計服務與查核意見聯立迴歸結果發現受查公司會透過委任會計師從事非審計服務，給予會計師經濟依賴的誘因，影響會計師出具意見，損及會計師的獨立性。 本研究進一步針對「非審計公費重大」的受查公司作測試，研究非審計公費比率與查核意見的關聯性，研究發現當非審計公費佔審計公費的比例愈高，會計師愈傾向簽發標準式無保留意見；本文證實受查公司所支付的非審計公費比率與會計師簽發的無保留意見交互影響，此實證結果亦是支持受查公司會透過委任會計師的非審計服務，影響會計師出具意見；歸納上述結果推論，目前台灣政府規範「達到非審計公費重大的門檻」的受查公司，應予揭露審計公費與非審計公費的訊息，形同提供投資人與財務報表使用者質疑「會計師獨立性」的警訊，此項規範具有政策意義。

關鍵字

非審計服務 ； 無保留意見 ； 財務危機 ； 會計師意見

並列摘要

This study explores how the audit opinion would be influenced by auditors' joint provisions of the audit and non-audit services. Because Taiwanese firms are required to disclose the non-audit service information under current regulations, the unique setting in Taiwan provides us good opportunity to realize the impact of substantial non-audit service on auditors' behaviors. Furthermore, this paper applies simultaneous equations to capture the causal relations between non-audit service and auditor's opinions.
The results indicate that the firms that assign substantial non-audit service are more inclined to receive standard unqualified opinions than the other firms. We also find that the firms with higher non-audit fee ratios tend to receive standard unqualified opinions. This suggests that auditors prefer to provide standard unqualified audit opinions when auditors provide both audit assignments and substantial non-audit services to their clients. In addition, audior are unlikely to issue standard unqualified opinion for firms who do not assign substantial non-audit service and have poor corporate governance. The evidence implies that auditors rely on economic benefits from non-audit services, so they tend to issue standard unqualified opinions even for the risky firms at the expense of litigation risks. Especially, the results of simultaneous regressions exhibit that non-audit fee ratios are casually correlated to standard unqualified opinions. This once supports the interrelationship between the standard auditor opinions and auditor's economic independence on non-audit services.

並列關鍵字

non-audit service ； unqualified opinion ； financial distress ； auditor's opinion

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