Role Of Safeguards In Strengthening Independence Essay

Role Of Safeguards In Strengthening Independence - Essay Example The importance of autonomy of auditors and the inherent risk of not being totally self-determining raises many of the issues where safeguards were suggested in order to minimize the threat to the sovereignty of the auditors. Although auditors cannot be completely liberated from the client, however, there are certain measures, which brings the dependency of the auditors to an acceptable level. Independence of the auditors is compulsory in order to assure that the opinion that the auditor provide is free from biases. Auditors provide reasonable assurance upon the financial statements of the company where the auditor expresses the opinion whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement and all applicable standards were followed (Cai, 1997). The assurance regarding the independence of auditors must be affirmed, though not completely but to an acceptable level (Silvia, 2010), by providing safeguards upon the issues that threaten the auditors’ independence. ... The safeguards provided in order to minimize the threat to the independence of the auditors are categorized differently. The safeguards provided ensure that the threats to the independence of auditors are minimized to the acceptable level. Absolute Prohibition The independence of the auditors is strengthened when there is complete prohibition is provided regarding the financial and non-financial interest of the auditor to the client. When the auditor is completely prohibited from possessing any type of interest in the client the independence increases (Peter, 2004). The framework completely restricts the client and auditor to possess any type of relationship whether business or personal. The restriction is imposed upon activities that are to be carried out between the client and the auditor. Permitting But Restricting the Extent In several cases the framework permits the auditor to continue with the activity with the client but the extent of the activity and relationship with the cli ent is limited.