The application in Malta of international standards on auditing : an evaluation

Abstract

The Companies Act 1995 has obliged every practitioner to comply with ISAs since they were adopted as our national auditing standards. The objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the impact of ISAs on the local profession, the monitoring of their application, their local relevance and future implications. Personal interviews were conducted with the five large audit firms, five small audit firms, and ten sole practitioners. The study finds that the adoption of ISAs has not exerted much influence on the local practitioners. In spite of being applied for a while, the profession has not as yet introduced external supervision controlling such application. Therefore, the study proposes a possible external control procedure. One controversial issue was whether ISAs are relevant when auditing small businesses. Opinions differed although the majority opinion seemed to disagree to such relevance. Another area of divergence was whether there should be a Maltese review of ISAs. The study also recommends possible measures including more emphasis on professional guidance.