The Canadian Public Accountability Board today proposied a series of amendments to its rules.
The CPAB is looking to amend its rules to require participating audit firms that are Certified General Accountants to adhere to the auditor independence requirements of the CGA Independence Standard instead of the Rules of Professional Conduct of the provincial Institutes/Ordre of Chartered Accountants.
In 2005, CGA Canada completed a project to revise the CGA Independence Standard. The new standard has been reviewed by the CPAB’s staff and is considered by the staff to be equivalent to the CA standards. As a result, the board believes that it is now appropriate to require CGA firms to comply with their own independence standards and to no longer require them to comply with the CA standards.
It is also seeking changes to:
- implement the board’s decision regarding the effective date for audit firms to apply the requirements of the revised CICA Handbook concerning the documentation to audits of financial statements of reporting issuers;
- provide the board’s staff with greater flexibility to determine the frequency of its regular inspections of participating audit firms with 50-99 reporting issuer audit clients; and
- amend the requirements for audit firms to provide annual client and fee data to the board in order to achieve efficiencies for both audit firms and the board.
These proposed amendments are open for comment until January 18, 2006. The CPAB intends to review the comments, revise its proposals as considered appropriate and finalize the amendments at its meeting on Feb. 16, 2006.