A Number Of Issues On The Audit Expectation Gap

Since the intermediate stage of 1960's, the Western folk auditor's lawsuit cases have emerged unceasingly, so the lawsuit detonation situation has formed. With the bankrupt of the massive companies, the accounting firms and chartered accountants in abundance are considered to the court. The audit report users often sum up the majority of responsibilities to the insufficient competent ability and the independence of chartered accountants, they hoped the compensations from chartered accountant, but they have never known the true responsibility of the cases and the true reason of the case. Indeed, the corrupt practices or the dereliction duty of the chartered accountant can cause the report not be in accordance with the facts, thus the wrong reports mislead the general public. But there are also some cases in which the chartered accountants have deferred to the extant criterions but still be received. After the studies we found that the reason of this lies in the audit expectation disparity. Just because the public has not carried on studies thoroughly to this concept and they still have the fuzzy understanding of it. This strange phenomenon has been created. Therefore, in order to avoid the unfair indictment and to find the true reason of these lawsuit, simultaneously in order to clarify the expectation of social public, make the result of the work be satisfied to the public ,it is an extremely urgent and important problem to do some thorough research on the audit expectation disparity.The audit expectation disparity refers to the difference between the expectations of the public and the public views on the work of chartered accountant. The research of audit expectation disparity must involve three essential factors: the auditor, the social public and the standard audit criterions. Clarify the disparity among these three aspects as well as the reason of the disparity is a key point of this article. After these questions, discover the solution, thus reduce the harm of the audit expectation disparity is the goal of this article. This article has meanwhile discussed the future dynamic trend of the audit expectation disparity and the essence of this trend: disparity can only be reduced but cannot finally be eliminated.The audit expectation disparity is an important question which discussed the audit function and the responsibility of the audit in a broader scope. Since the 1970's, AICPA has proposed the audit expectation disparity, this question was considered to be one of thorniest questions which supervising and managing organization has faced (Humphrey et al.1992) . Through its research, on the one hand, we can explicit chartered accountant's legal liability more cleared, so we can exempt the unreasonable indictment and strengthens to their protection. On the other hand, we will be able to cause chartered accountants' enhancement of their ability, put their work closer and closer to the public's expectation ,thus it will achieve a win-win result. And what is more, clear about the audit expectation disparity origin can also be possible to facilitate the audit criterion to revised, built a stable harmonious social environment for us. Finally, through the deep understanding, we may draw such conclusion: It is precisely as a result of the audit expectation disparity the audit goal is evolving. Therefore we may say that the audit expectation disparity is a most basic concept in the audit scope, conduct the research to it has great significance to our country and even the world.