Quality Of Information Disclosure,Internal Control And Audit Fees

Along with the transition of Chinese economy from high-speed growth stage to high-quality development stage,the party and the country attach great importance to the sound ecological environment as the premise of high-quality economic development.As the main unit of environmental consumption,enterprises should pay attention to the fulfillment of environmental responsibility while seeking profits and benefits,and actively disclose environmental information to the outside world.As an important information intermediary in the capital market,auditors can provide reasonable assurance for whether the financial statements of enterprises are free from material misstatement and charge audit fees.According to Auditing Standards of Chinese Certified Public Accountants No.1631--Consideration of Environmental Matters,certified public accountants shall consider whether the environmental matters of clients will cause material misstatement risks,and shall carry out corresponding audit procedures according to the environmental matters of clients and their possible impact on audit risks.Then,when companies are required to disclose environmental information,whether auditors will pay sufficient attention to environmental information and take it into account in audit fees remains to be studied.In view of this,based on the legitimacy theory,stakeholder theory,signal transmission theory and risk-oriented audit theory,this paper analyzes the mechanism of environmental information disclosure,internal control and audit fees.In this paper,A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2012 to 2021 are selected as research samples,and Stata17.0is used to empirically-test the impact mechanism of environmental information disclosure and internal control on audit fees.In addition,the mechanism of environmental information disclosure on audit fees is empirically-tested based on the intermediary variables of business risk.This study expands the application of corporate environmental information disclosure in the field of audit fees and has a reference and promotion role for accounting firms to determine audit fees more reasonably and normalize.The results show that:(1)Environmental information disclosure has a significant positive impact on audit fees,and it is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises.(2)Compared with heavy polluting industries,environmental information disclosure in non-heavy polluting industries has a more significant impact on audit fees.(3)There is a significant negative correlation between enterprise internal control and audit fees,and it is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises.(4)Corporate internal control can weaken the positive impact of corporate environmental information disclosure on audit fees,and this weakening effect is more significant in enterprises in regions with a higher degree of marketization.(5)Business risk plays a partial intermediary effect in the process of environmental information disclosure affecting audit fees.(6)Among the five elements of internal control,control environment,control activities and information communication are significantly negatively correlated with audit fees.