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To maintain independence, auditors have to follow professional conduct and moral ethics which require auditors to ensure they do not perform management functions or make management decision is relevant with their client firms. This seems to imply that the audit performs a consultancy function which conflicts somewhat with the idea of auditor independence. The value of auditing depends heavily on the public’s perception of the independence of auditors. It is not surprising that independence is the first subject addressed in the rules of professional conduct. Independence is a crucial concept that sets auditors apart from the accountancy profession, as their core mission is to certify the public reports that describe companies’ financial status. By expressing an opinion, the independent auditor assumes a public duty. The function of “public watchdog” demands that the auditor subordinates responsibility towards the client in order to maintain complete fidelity to the public trust. The peril in the lack of independence is that the shareholder as a class who reads and relies upon the financial statements upon which the auditor has rendered an opinion to its detriment has a cause of action against the auditor. To serve such a class of persons an auditor needs to take an unbiased viewpoint when performing audit tests, evaluating the results therein, and issuing an audit report and opinion with respect to financial statements. (Moore, D. A, 2004)

In another point of view, the revenues generated from consulting may be sufficiently large to influence the auditor’s judgment regarding questionable accounting policies. In other words, the threat of the auditor becoming too closely that is involved with the interests of the directors, especially if problems arise with the Inland Revenue. It could be argued that this threat is mitigated if different personnel are involved in performing the personal tax work.

To keep away from auditor independent problem, prohibition of other services is significant. It has been suggested that auditors should be prohibited from performing any other work for client companies. Consequently this would remove the self-interest threat of losing lucrative work if the auditors displease the directors. Furthermore, the policy of mandatory rotation of audit partners for a particular audit is suggested as a means of improving audit quality and therefore increasing the quality of general-purpose financial statements. The benefits normally espoused are that the independence of the engagement partner is maintained or that a new perspective on the audit may result in the identification of issues that have been overlooked on previous audits. So periodically mandate rotation of auditors is worth mentioning. For example, if the audit firm is changed periodically every five to seven years, auditors will not become too familiar or trusting of directors. Also auditors would be less concerned about losing an audit that will be rotated in the near future anyway. Additionally this would have cost implications as first audits are more time consuming and the recommendation has not surprisingly proved unpopular with clients as well as audit firms. However, no doubt in an attempt to be seen to address this issue, the Rules of Professional Conduct now state “in relation to the audit of listed companies no engag本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。