When the Rules and the Law No Longer Agree: Proceed with Care When Regulator-Prescribed Forms Do Not Comply with GAAS

Many regulators require that independent auditors provide an opinion on financial information that is submitted to a regulator, often by means of an auditor's report on forms prescribed by the regulator.  Auditors engaged to submit reports on prescribed forms need to consider what the regulator is requesting of the auditor. Many regulators use language that is not consistent with the language used in GAAS.  If the minimum required reporting elements and wording are not contained in the prescribed form, GAAS requires the auditor to reword the prescribed form of the report or attach an appropriately worded separate report.  Similar considerations apply when practitioners are requested to report on prescribed forms in review or compilation engagements.  In 2012, a form required by the New York City Tax Commission left auditors in a quandary. Recent changes to GAAS that revised the wording of the auditor's report had not been reflected in the form. As a result, the form required auditors to submit a report to the Tax Commission that did not contain the elements and wording that GAAS requires auditors to use. The Real Estate Committee of the New York State Society of CPAs and the AICPA Audit and Attest Standards Team stepped in to craft a solution, allowing auditors to meet the AICPA Auditing Standards Board's new standards without requiring the city of New York to issue a new form. But the problem persists in other places. Auditors are finding themselves in the awkward position of having to submit forms that are required by regulators but are not in compliance with state accountancy laws that require auditors to follow GAAS % for engagements that require a review or compilation, Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARSs). Auditors who determine that a regulator-prescribed report form is not in accordance with the requirements of GAAS may wish to contact the regulator to determine if a reworded form or separate report will be accepted. Auditors may wish to contact their state societies to work with them and the regulator to resolve the issue. The AICPA developed a webpage (available at tinyurl.comlmrq2fso) with resources to assist practitioners, including a sample letter for contacting a regulator about prescribed report forms that do not comply with GAAS.  But the situation may take time to resolve. In the meantime, here is how auditors should proceed when confronted with such a problem. THE AUDITOR'S REPORT When a regulator prescribes the form of an auditor's report, the auditor is permitted to refer to GAAS only when the auditor's report includes the elements required by GAAS (see Exhibit 1). Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 122, Clarification and Recodification, revised the wording of the auditor's report. The description of management's responsibilities and description of an audit particularly changed in the revision. As a result, many regulator-prescribed forms may no longer be in accordance with GAAS. If the prescribed form does not contain the minimum required reporting elements and wording, GAAS requires the auditor to reword the prescribed form of the report or attach an appropriately worded separate report. Some regulator-prescribed report forms can be made acceptable by inserting additional wording to include the elements that GAAS requires. Other regulator-pre scribed report forms need complete re vision to be acceptable because the prescribed language of the report calls for statements that are inconsistent with the auditor's function or responsibility. An example of this would be a regulator-prescribed report form that requests the auditor to certify the financial statements. The NYC Tax Commission agreed to allow auditors either to insert footnotes in the form that contained the appropriate wording or to attach a separate report.

Field of study: Business