Author(s)

Heng Xie ¹, Shuo Liu ¹, Jing Li ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Hebei GEO University, Shijiazhuang, China

Corresponding Author

Jing Li

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there have been frequent cases of financial fraud and audit failures among listed companies in China. Audit quality issues continue to attract public attention. Audit quality is the lifeline of audit business and the fundamental factor for auditing to fully exert its functions, and its importance is self-evident. There are numerous factors that affect audit quality, and audit fees are one of the important factors that affect audit quality. The changes in the external macro environment and the speculative behavior of the audited entity will both lead to an increase in audit fees. Abnormally high audit fees often indicate that companies are engaging in high priced buying of audit opinions. The situation of oversupply in the audit market, coupled with the unequal status between accounting firms and clients, has led to a phenomenon of low price competition. Both positive and negative abnormal audit fees can lead to a decrease in the quality of auditors' practice. Therefore, this article will start from the definition of abnormal audit fees and audit quality, and further analyze the impact of abnormal audit fees on audit quality. At the same time, this article proposes countermeasures to address the phenomenon of abnormal audit fees damaging audit quality, in order to assist in improving audit quality.

KEYWORDS

Abnormal audit fees; audit opinion; buying at a high price; low price competition

CITE THIS PAPER

Heng Xie, Shuo Liu, Jing Li, Analysis of the Impact of Abnormal Audit Fees on Audit Quality. Accounting, Auditing and Finance (2023) Vol. 4: 1-9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/accaf.2023.040201.

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