From:Financial Scandal Fans Never Had It So Good: Jonathan Weil. Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-10/financial-scandal-fans-never-had-it-so-good-commentary-by-jonathan-weil.html
So many large companies have blown up after getting the all-clear from a Big Four accounting firm that many people regard auditor opinion letters as a joke. The client pays the auditor, after all. (Gee, no conflict there!) Regulators for decades have tried figuring out ways to dance around this fundamental flaw in the industry’s business model, by passing all sorts of rules requiring that auditors be “independent,” as foolish as that notion might seem at times. New waves of accounting scandals keep coming anyway.
Yet the next logical step -- stripping the accounting profession of its golden goose by making outside audits voluntary for public companies rather than mandatory -- always has seemed like a horrible idea, because it practically would be an invitation for more frauds. Nor is there much appetite to have third parties, such as national governments, pay for companies’ audits. The results probably wouldn’t be any better.
The public views an audit differently than the CPA profession. Increased occurrences of fraud after receiving clean audit opinions will strengthen the case for more scrutiny or revision of auditing practices.