Accounting firms in Britain, including PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young, have begun adding disclaimers to their audit letters saying that no one but the shareholders of the audited company may hold the auditors responsible for the accuracy of the figures.
When the accountants and auditors responsible for policing Enron were on the beat, they were also on the take, a badge in one hand and an open palm in the other.
"It's a bit of a stretch to say that auditors are responsible for an annual report's graphics.
The five internal auditors are responsible for a total of 8.4 billion yen ($109 million) in costs related to the cover-up, Olympus said.
And changes in several laws since 1998 have modernized some Russian accounting practices and, more recently, made auditors more responsible for the integrity of the figures they sign.
Someone has to stand behind the fundamental accuracy of a company's financial statements in a legally responsible way, but derelict auditors, executives and boards of directors have defaulted, either by design or inexcusable ignorance.
However, since auditors are responsible for a clean financial statement, it is not unlikely that their decisions about corporate tax burdens will contrast with pure tax consultants' advice even when auditors have the formal tax consultant qualification.
The fee-based model is accepted business practice in auditing, as well as for debt rating agencies, where a company pays but the auditors remain responsible to the public.
Homocianu and Airinei (2014) showed that the dynamic and responsible nature of financial auditors in the role of experienced and professional entrepreneurs can remove the urgent needs of each company to offer fair financial reports and statements in accordance with legal frameworks that investors, creditors, government and people benefit from.
In 1997, Singer said, each defense auditor was responsible for overseeing about $642 million in contracts on average.
