Related Services Impact On The Independence Of Certified Public Accountants

Study on the impact between relevant services and CPA's(Certified Public Accountant) independence can be traced back to the seventies of the 20th century. Today, we still haven't drawn an unified view in this field. Some scholars think that the CPAs can strengthen their independence by offering relevant services. Some scholars think that it is apt to cause confusion of CPA's role and may build up economic dependence between CPAs and their customers when CPAs offer relevant services to their auditing customers, and auditor independence may be weakened. In fact, the revenue percentage in relevant services has been increased steadily. Relevant services has taken the place of audit and become the "leading role" in the business system of CPA. Relevant services win the favor because of its rapid development and bring great concern of public. In the end, the related authorities have to step in because of the disputes of the profession and doubts of the public. In 2000, with the active promotion of chief Arthur Levitt, SEC launched a spectacular campaign towards the revision of independence rules, which leaded to a war between relevant services and the independence of CPA—the fuse of "independence war". In the end of 2001, Andersen suddenly collapsed and was excluded from the profession of accounting, so "big five" turned to "big four", which marked the climax of the "war".In the background of Andersen collapsed and "big five" turned to "big four", a comprehensive and systemic research on relevant services in the view of theory is necessary and important. This essay expounds the effect of relevant services on audit independence from theoretic analysis level and practice policies level, at last comes to the conclusion: relevant services influence independence of CPA, to which extent depend on three factors which are the kinds of relevant service, the proportion of relevant service and the anti-threat ability of CPA. Then on the basis of analysis of the status of relevant services of our CPA, points out the development strategy of relevant services in China; then puts forward the corresponding policies and suggestions.