From the moment it comes into being, certified public accountants shoulder corresponding responsibilities, such as accounting responsibility, auditing responsibility and legal responsibility. Solving the problem of CPA's responsibility not only affects the quality of social accounting audit, but also determines the professional social status of CPA, which plays an inestimable role in the orderly operation of China's market economy and legal system construction. However, due to the short recovery time of China's CPA system, China's socialist market economy system is still in the stage of gradual development, the market behavior of enterprises is not standardized, the internal control system of some enterprises is not perfect, the accounting work order has not yet been determined, and some companies and enterprises have poor accounting supervision, distorted accounting information and other factors to varying degrees, as well as insufficient attention to the responsibilities of certified public accountants. In order to strengthen audit law enforcement and improve audit quality, corresponding measures should be taken to further improve the legal environment for certified public accountants to practice. Accounting responsibility and audit responsibility are the basic responsibilities of certified public accountants, and legal responsibility is the guarantee of accounting responsibility and audit responsibility. Here, we only briefly discuss the audit risks and legal responsibilities of certified public accountants.
First, the current reasons for the existence of legal liability for audit risks of certified public accountants
1, lack of professional ability. At present, China's accounting system is in the stage of international integration, and joining WTO has also accelerated this process. With the promulgation of new standards and regulations and the requirements of expanding business, we should continue to strengthen the follow-up study and training even if we have obtained the qualification certificate. However, many certified public accountants pay little attention to this and have not expanded their knowledge to meet the increasingly complex business development needs. Audit ability is always in a passive state, always trying to meet the needs of society, but it can't fully meet the needs of society. Every step of the audit process is inseparable from professional experience, which is difficult to adapt to the rapidly changing objective environment, that is, it is necessary to judge the authenticity and fairness of the audited data, as well as the appropriateness and effectiveness of subjective audit behaviors and methods. Audit experience is not omnipotent and sometimes makes mistakes.
2. The internal audit strength is weak, and the internal control system is poorly implemented. The audit cost of certified public accountants is very low, but the potential income is very high. It is often difficult to maintain independence with a registered capital of several hundred thousand yuan and undertaking hundreds of millions or billions of businesses. Audit focuses on the audit of grass-roots operators, ignoring the audit of key personnel, which can not effectively deter key personnel, and also provides the possibility of creating false audit reports. Internal control is scattered, overlapping, contradictory and inefficient, and it is often quite common that there are orders that cannot be made, prohibitions, rules that are not followed, and illegal operations. The separation of posts and the management of special personnel are not well implemented, and the audit work cannot prevent problems before they happen. In addition, the economic environment, the characteristics of the audited unit's economic activities, the strength of the internal control system, the development trend of technology, the quality and quality of managers and other reasons will have an impact on the business risk of enterprises, thus increasing the audit risk.
3. Poor sense of responsibility, low professional ethics and lack of professional caution. Job responsibilities require certified public accountants to be high-level talents with both ability and political integrity, with noble moral quality, positive personality and meticulous work attitude, solid accounting, auditing, legal knowledge and basic auditing skills, keen analytical ability and accurate judgment ability. However, many auditors either lack proper professional doubts about transaction matters, or collect obviously insufficient audit evidence, or use improper audit procedures, or trust management authorities too much, or pay insufficient attention to customer fraud research, or auditors have low ideological level, poor professional quality and careless attitude, which will undoubtedly increase audit risks.
4. The complexity of the audit object and the extensiveness of the audit content. From early fault detection and fraud prevention, to balance sheet audit, and then to financial statements. The scope of audit has expanded to today, far exceeding the traditional audit. The audit of certified public accountants should not only study and evaluate the soundness and operation effect of the internal control system of the audited entity, but also report on the future sustainable operation ability of the enterprise. This information is very uncertain and risky. It is difficult for certified public accountants to make correct audit conclusions, and the risks are inevitable. In addition, people rely heavily on audit reports. With the rapid development of capital market, investors, report users and managers show great concern about the financial situation of enterprises, and pay more attention to the reliability of audited financial statements. More and more people rely on audit opinions, and the audit risk is getting higher and higher.
5. The local government's supervision is weak. Local protectionism still exists in China. In order to whitewash the local economy and cover up the fraudulent behavior of listed companies. In addition, the supervision system is weak, the supervision means are immature, and the number of supervisors is seriously insufficient. It is difficult for listed companies to find and investigate fraud in time. Under this condition, certified public accountants acquiesce in this kind of fraudulent behavior of listed companies.
6. CPA audit lacks perfect legal protection. It is impossible for certified public accountants to find out all the mistakes and frauds of enterprises through auditing, but the public often regards audit opinions as the guarantee or guarantee of accounting statements. Although the audited entity is a counterfeiter, and the public or judges require certified public accountants to bear all or major responsibilities, the status of auditing standards has not been confirmed in law, and the content of civil liability for auditing in other laws and regulations is almost blank.
Second, the legal responsibility of CPA audit
1, the embodiment of the legal responsibility of certified public accountants. In modern society, the legal responsibility of certified public accountants is gradually expanding. Generally speaking, the CPA profession is affected, even hindered or impacted because: first, the interests of consumers are rising, and people gradually recognize and attach importance to it; Second, the application of audit insurance theory; Third, the participation of certified public accountants is increasing in all commercial fields. The failure or bankruptcy of enterprises caused by management fraud has increased sharply, and investors and lenders have suffered heavy losses. Therefore, certified public accountants are accused of revealing or reporting these problems in time and demanding compensation for related losses. Under the pressure of society, court decisions in many countries gradually tend to increase the legal responsibility of certified public accountants in these areas. Therefore, the legal responsibility of certified public accountants continues to expand, leading to "litigation explosion." In the current legal environment, one of the concerns of the CPA industry is the increasing number of litigation cases and compensation for improper practice of accounting firms and certified public accountants. In 1990s, American experts estimated that the direct litigation costs of American accounting firms accounted for 20% of their audit income due to the surge of legal litigation and compensation. Litigation compensation is not only a problem faced by accounting firms, but also a problem faced by certified public accountants. With the rapid growth of litigation, the amount of professional negligence insurance claims has increased sharply, which will inevitably lead to the increase of insurance costs.
2. Identification of legal liability of certified public accountants. The premise of discussing and determining the basis of CPA's legal responsibility is to clarify accounting responsibility and auditing responsibility. At present, this issue is only mentioned in the independent auditing standards, but the independent auditing standards belong to the industry standards and have low legal effect. In actual litigation, lawyers and judges are often not familiar with the professional characteristics and industry standards of certified public accountants, and do not understand the inherent limitations of auditing, which often leads to the judgment made by judges against certified public accountants. Certified public accountants and the legal profession have different views on the authenticity of audit reports. The legal profession believes that as long as the report issued by certified public accountants is inconsistent with the reality, it is an untrue audit report. Let them realize that even if they practice in strict accordance with auditing standards, it is difficult to ensure that the reports issued are completely consistent with the actual situation. To investigate the legal responsibility of certified public accountants and accounting firms, there should be a statutory evaluation institution and legal procedures. There are mainly the following points: First, by amending the Law on Certified Public Accountants, a certified public accountant legal liability appraisal committee was established in China Institute of Certified Public Accountants according to law, with legal experts and experts and scholars proficient in certified public accountants as members to define whether certified public accountants and firms should bear legal liabilities. Second, certified public accountants, law firms or other interested parties who have objections to the conclusions of the review committee may apply for reconsideration to the legal liability review committee of certified public accountants in China. Third, the client or other interested parties may also bring a lawsuit directly to the court. The court may entrust the above-mentioned evaluation institutions to define whether certified public accountants and firms should bear legal liabilities, and determine the civil liabilities that the responsible persons should bear according to the results of the definition. However, if the court disagrees with this definition, it can still make a judgment according to the relevant legal provisions. 3, the legal responsibility of certified public accountants. In order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of users of CPA's audit reports and strengthen CPA's sense of responsibility, China's relevant laws stipulate the legal responsibilities that CPA should bear. The legal responsibilities of certified public accountants include administrative responsibility, civil responsibility and criminal responsibility. These legal liability clauses are scattered in the CPA Law, the Company Law, the Securities Law and the Criminal Law.
Three, the CPA to avoid the legal responsibility of audit risk response measures
1, strengthen the follow-up study of certified public accountants. Attach importance to the training and follow-up education of certified public accountants, and properly divide the work and authorize them. The Institute of Certified Public Accountants should regularly check and evaluate, and urge firms and certified public accountants to strengthen their own training and improvement, and firms should also regularly organize relevant training and education. And strengthen the publicity of their professional responsibilities through various means.
2. Maintain the independence of the audit. Adhering to the independent auditing standards, resolutely getting rid of all kinds of relationship troubles, changing the way of auditing entrustment, establishing an audit committee, and protecting the independence of certified public accountants are conducive to the smooth implementation of auditing, improving the corporate governance structure of Chinese companies, and learning from the risk-oriented auditing methods of developed countries to ensure the authenticity and integrity of auditing.
3. Strengthen professional ethics education and improve the professional ethics level of certified public accountants. Good professional ethics is the foundation of CPA profession. Adhere to the principle of "grasping with both hands", while doing a good job in business development, focus on educating certified public accountants in ideological and political, professional ethics and laws and regulations, so that they can firmly establish a correct outlook on life and values, be honest and self-disciplined, abide by the law, treat power, fame and fortune correctly, and consciously resist the erosion of various negative factors and corrupt ideas.
4. Improve the internal control system and raise awareness of internal control and risk prevention. Pay attention to the renewal of internal control system, and convey the latest and most practical internal control system to certified public accountants at any time, so as to learn, refer to and use it, improve the enforceability of the system, avoid the phenomenon that it is difficult to follow the rules, comprehensively integrate, sort out and optimize the existing internal control system, highlight the prevention of business risks, cultivate certified public accountants' sensitivity and understanding of risks, overcome arbitrariness, improve the awareness of self-restraint and supervision of others, and minimize audit risks. Experience also shows that choosing the right auditee and determining the acceptability of customers is an effective way to reduce risks and reduce the possibility of auditors taking legal responsibility for misjudgment.
5. Extract the risk base to purchase liability insurance. In western countries, it is an extremely important protective measure for accounting firms to buy enough liability insurance. Although insurance can't protect it from possible legal proceedings, it can prevent or reduce the financial losses of accounting firms when litigation fails. China's Law on Certified Public Accountants also stipulates that accounting firms should establish occupational risk funds and handle occupational insurance in accordance with regulations.
6. The government should strengthen the industry supervision of listed companies and certified public accountants. Listed companies and certified public accountants who are found to have committed fraud in violation of regulations will pay a price if they want to find hell, and they will never tolerate it. The cost of fraud must be much higher than the income of fraud. The establishment of the same industry review system, by a firm or designated inspectors to review, investigate and evaluate the audit business of another firm, hell to pay found problems.
7. Improve relevant laws and set up a legal liability appraisal committee for certified public accountants. The evaluation of CPA's legal responsibility is a highly professional and complicated work. A legal liability appraisal committee composed of legal circles, business circles and certified public accountants may be established to be responsible for appraising the responsibilities of certified public accountants in the audit process. It is suggested to amend relevant laws and regulations, clarify the legal responsibilities of certified public accountants in the audit process, have certain standards for assuming responsibilities, determine the status of independent auditing standards in the law, properly protect the status of certified public accountants, introduce relevant auditing laws as soon as possible, and clarify the legal responsibilities that certified public accountants should bear in civil sanctions. In addition, in terms of legal responsibilities, certified public accountants can hire lawyers who are familiar with the legal responsibilities of certified public accountants as legal advisers to consult on various problems encountered in the audit process, which is very helpful for protecting themselves.