CAI Welcomes New Auditing Standards

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

14 October 2009

Chartered Accountants Ireland has welcomed the decision of the Auditing Practices Board to issue new standards on auditing for application in Ireland and the UK. These will apply for audits of financial statements for periods ending on or after December 15, 2010. For audits of accounting periods ending before that date the existing standards continue to apply.

Commenting on the release of guidance on the new standards, available on the APB’s site, Chairman, Richard Fleck, commented:

“The new international auditing standards that underlie the new ISAs (UK and Ireland) have been developed with significant input from regulators and stakeholders and are more rigorous and clearer than existing auditing standards in any country. The APB has concluded, after consultation, that the international standards are fit for purpose in the UK and Ireland and should be applied as soon as practicable. The APB hopes that these standards will be mandated for use within the European Union in the near future.”

Welcoming the new standards, Aidan Lambe, Director of Technical Policy at Chartered Accountants Ireland, said:

"These standards reflect the requirements of those auditing standards applied internationally. The new standards (33 in total) are in a different format from the current standards and contain some additional requirements in a number of areas, most notably in relation to group audits and the audit of both accounting estimates and related parties. There are also new standards on communicating deficiencies in internal control and evaluation of misstatements. APB has supplemented these with relatively few additional requirements to address specific local regulatory and legal requirements. Chartered Accountants Ireland is already working on implementation aids for its practitioner members to assist them in managing the transition to the new standard regime.”

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