BUACC3741: Auditing- Foundation of a Profession Lies with its Ethical Values- Essay Writing Assignment

Internal Code: 1HFAC

Essay Writing Assignment:

Task: According to your textbook, “The foundation of a profession lies with its ethical values. With the increasing complexity of businesses and the significant role of accountants and auditors as moral agents…Auditors are gatekeepers that play a critical role in ensuring that Australian investors can be confident and informed…Auditing is an essential and integral element of government accountability”. According to ASIC's Greg Medcraft, “Appalling' audit quality could lead to next Enron”. According to a CPA, “There is a high potential for machine learning to provide augmented analyses to auditors. Note that I did not say that it would replace auditors—machine learning is just another tool in the auditor’s belt of Computer Assisted Auditing Tools and Techniques (CAATTs)”. According to Sikka (2009), “The second question relates to the basic auditing model and total auditor income. The auditing firms are capitalist enterprises and are dependent upon companies and their directors for income. The fee dependency impairs claims of independence and has the capacity to silence auditors (Powers et al., 2002; United States Bankruptcy Court for the District Delaware, 2008). It poses fundamental questions about the private sector model of auditing which expects one set of capitalist entrepreneurs (auditors) to regulate another set of capitalist entrepreneurs (company directors)”.  Required: Discuss the opportunities and challenges for the auditing profession under the Australian auditing model. You also need to address the recent regulatory attempts to improve the audit quality in Australia. You need to support your discussion with suitable examples and relevant cases – both recent and past.