美国企业内部控制审计的定位

Definition of Internal Control Auditing in the US

美国《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》要求对公众公司的内部控制进行独立审计。通过分析COSO内部控制整合框架及美国内部控制审计准则制定过程中的文献,阐释美国内部控制审计定位中的重大问题,包括内部控制审计的范围、时间维度、工作投入、发表意见的形式、缺陷认定标准、与财务报表审计的关系等,特别是挖掘之所以这样定位背后的原因,对以前相关研究进行了补充和完善。在制定我国内部控制审计标准过程中,曾发生过激烈的争论,当前审计实务中也存在模糊认识。研究澄清了审计理论和实务界的认识误区,推动会计师事务所内部控制审计水平的提升和财务报表审计技术的升级。

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act adopted in 2002 requires independent auditing of internal control over financial reporting （ICFR） of public companies in the US. Based on an analysis of official documents, the paper explains how and why the internal control audit is defined, including the scope of audit, reporting timeframe, work effort, form of opinion, criteria for material weakness and its relationship with financial statement audit. During the development of internal control auditing standards in China there was a heated debate. The practitioners also have some misunder- standings about this subject. This research complements prior research on the same subject in the hope of reduceing misunderstandings in theory and practice of ICFR audit and promoting the upgrade of auditing approaches in finan- cial statement audits .