Abstract

VILLACORTA-HERNANDEZ, Miguel Ángel. Legal Abandon of the Purpose of Attaining Independence in the Audit of Accounts. Cuad. Contab. [online]. 2014, vol.15, n.37, pp.215-237. ISSN 0123-1472.

Independ ence as a quality constitutes the essential characteristic that account auditors of annual accounts must have in carrying out their activity, up to the point that the existence of this activity would not make any sense if it were not be performed by independent professionals. In this work we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the possible measures to guarantee the independence of the auditor. For this we analyze the provisions of the US Securities Exchange Commission, SEC, the Sarbanes-Oxley Law, the European Guidelines and the Spanish law. However, the conclusions may be extended to Latin American countries, Colombia among them. The conclusion of this research is that tepidity and mistakes in the international regulations are the main obstacle to attain a high level of independence in the work of the auditor.

Keywords : external audit; professional skepticism; independence; European guideline; financial auditing; auditors - malpractice; auditing.

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