Auditor Rotation and Legal, Tax and Accounting Distortions

Awareness of the reliability of financial information is very important for reasons such as conflict ofinterests, economic events complexity and so on. On the other hand, financial scandals of largecorporates like Enron and WorldCom caused the issue of using the services of independent auditors,precise monitoring, noticing audit reports quality and maintaining the independence of audit institutionsto be seriously considered. Therefore, to increase the quality of audit reports and to maintain theindependence of audit institutions various strategies have been provided by the professional bodies andexperts in this field. One of the recommendations they offered is regular rotation of the audit firm. Inrecent years, the change (rotation) of the auditors in listed corporates in Stock Exchange has become aconventional phenomenon. This can affect the auditor’s professional power and independence and causeunfavorable consequences. The auditor rotation influences the audit profession performance and itscredibility on the one hand and on the other hand on the flow of capital in the financial markets. Thepresent study aims to examine the relationship between the auditor rotation and legal, tax and accountingdistortions in corporates. The sample of the study consisted of ۱۳۰ corporates listed in Tehran StockExchange for the ۵-year period of ۲۰۰۹ to ۲۰۱۳. To verify the research hypotheses, multiple regressiontest has been used. Statistical Hypotheses have been evaluated using control variables of audit quality,auditor's opinion and firm size. The results of hypotheses testing show that the rotation of auditors willlead to reduce distortions such as tax, legal and accounting distortions. The results also indicate that theincrease in audit quality and firm size decreases corporates’ auditor rotation.

کلیدواژه ها:

Auditor rotation ، Legal distortions ، Tax distortions ، Accounting distortions ، Audit quality