Influence of discretionary accounting practices in the audit fees

Abstract

Some accounting practices may allow greater discretion and may be used to manage information. This may involve greater efforts by independent auditors to identify possible risks for validating this information, increasing the amount of fees. Thus, the objective of this study was to verify the relationship between the adoption of discretionary accounting practices, such as fair value, by calculating the discounted cash flow, and applying the impairment calculation, with audit fees. The search was conducted in Brazilian non-financial publicly traded companies, from 2010 to 2014, using mean difference and panel regression tests. The results indicated that there was a significant and positive relationship between discretionary accounting practices and audit fees, more specifically regarding the adoption of fair value. As well as confirming the relationship of some determinants of fees such as: size of audited company, risk, complexity, Profitability, hiring of Big Four, adoption of corporate governance practices and rotation of audit firms. In this way, the research contributes to a reflection on the use of subjective accounting practices, capable of positively impacting the usefulness of the financial statements, but which can be determinants of information costs in the agent-principal relationship. In addition, the study broadens the research on the determinants of fees, evidencing the aspects of risks observed by the auditors that can also be used by investors in investment assessments, and by regulators in identifying parameters for observing abnormal payments of these fees.