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금감원은 2020년부터 계약감사시간･보수를 실제 시간･보수와 함께 사업보고서에 공시하도록 하였다. 이는 감사보수 계약방식 운영에 대한 감독기관의 적극적 관리 의지를 나타내며, 표준감사시간제도 도입 후 높아진 감사보수에도 불구하고 감사시간이 과소 투입될 위험에 초점을 맞춘다. 본 연구는 관련 실증자료의 수집을 위하여, 계약-실제 감사시간･보수 공시정보를 기초로 국내 감사시장에서 감사계약의 현황과 함께 계약-실제감사시간･보수 차이에 따른 기업특성 및 감사품질의 차이 및 계약-실제감사시간 비율과 감사보수 비율 관계에서 경직성이 존재하는지 조사한다. 2020년부터 2022년까지 상장기업 감사시간･보수 자료를 조사한 결과, 연구대상 표본의 94%가 실제와 계약 감사보수가 동일하고, 5% 표본만이 계약 대비 실제보수가 증가하였다. 특히 실제감사시간이 계약시간을 초과한 표본 중 8%만이 감사보수를 추가청구하였다. 실제-계약감사보수 비율의 평균은 시간 비율의 평균보다 더 낮고, 계약 대비 실제감사보수의 감소표본 수는 증가표본 수보다 적으며, 계약 대비 실제감사보수 감소금액 비율이 증가금액 비율보다 작게 나타났다. 위 현상은 국내 감사계약에서 감사보수 경직성 현상과 고정감사보수 계약형태가 발생하고 있음을 나타낸다. 한편 실제-계약 감사시간･보수 차이 기업의 기업특성을 조사한 결과, 대형감사인, 초도감사, 지정감사 기업에서 계약 대비 실제 감사시간･보수의 변동이 주로 나타났다. 다만 실제-계약감사보수 차이 표본의 감사품질 차이는 발견되지 않았다. 그리고 실제-계약 감사시간 비율과 감사보수 비율 사이에 “S”자 형태의 비선형 관계가 존재하며, 이 또한 고정보수계약 관행 때문에 감사보수하향조정은 유의하지 않고 상향조정시에만 유의한 차이를 나타냈다. 본 연구는 감사시간･보수의 계약방식과 관련하여 국내 감사계약 현황을 조사하고, 실제-계약 감사시간･보수 차이 기업의 특성을 조사함으로써 향후 감사시간･보수 관련 회계감독을 위한 정책적 시사점을 제기한다.
After the Standard Audit Hour System (SAHS) was implemented, the Korean regulatory authority (the Financial Supervisory Service; the FSS) recognized the importance of managing audit hours in the audit contracts in Korea, and revised the Standards for Preparing Corporate Disclosure Forms requiring to disclose contract audit hours and fees information in the public company’s annual reports from 2020, along with actual audit hours and fees data by the existing standard. Also the FSS recommended to actively decrease audit fees if actual audit hours are significantly lower than the contract hours. Palmrose (1989) explained that audit fee contracts are classified as the fixed-fee contract type and the cost-reimbursement contract type. It is known that audit contracts are generally fixed-fee types, rather than cost-reimbursement contract types in Korean audit market. This change in disclosure system indicates the FSS’s intention to actively supervise the audit fee contract practices, focusing on the risk of under-investing audit hours despite of the increased audit fees under the SAHS. This study investigates descriptive analyses for Korean audit contract types based on the above audit hours and fees disclosure information, and examines the corporate characteristics and audit quality according to the difference between contract-actual audit hours and fees. Previous studies (Causholli et al. 2010; de Villiers 2014; Chang et al. 2019; Munsif et al. 2011) also reported there is stickiness in audit fee contracts, and this study sees whether any audit fee stickiness is found in Korean audit contract practices by investigating relationship between the contract-actual audit hour ratio and the audit fee ratio. For this purpose, this paper provide analyses of the audit hours and fees disclosure data in the Korean public companies’ annual reports, so as to find insights of the management and supervision thereon. As a result of studies based on the contract-actual audit fees hours disclosure data from 2020 to 2022, it is found that 94% of population show that their contract and actual audit fees, and only 5% of population in which the actual audit fees exceeded the contract fees. In addition, 8% of the samples with the actual audit hours larger than the contract hours were charged additional audit fees. The average of the actual-contract audit fees and audit hours ratio was 1.0122 and 1.0454, respectively. As such, average actual-contract audit hours is higher than average actual-contract audit fees, which indicates that audit fee increase is sticky as compared to audit hour increases. Meanwhile, it is found that the number of samples for the actual reduction in audit fees compared to contracts was less than the increase, and the reduction amount (ratio) was less than the increase amount (ratio). This phenomenon indicates that there is an upward stickiness of audit fees, and the form of fixed audit fees contract types are still effective in Korean audit market. For a detailed analysis of the audit hours and fees information of Korean audit market, the corporate characteristics of companies having differences in actual-contract audit hours and fees were investigated through multivariate analyses. In addition, it is investigated whether there is any difference in audit quality of the sample having the actual-contract audit fee difference, and found that they are not significant. The actual-contract audit hours ratio was also examines whether they are proportionally increasing to the actual-contract audit fee ratio, and found that the level (height) of the actual-contract audit fee ratio was lower in the sample with the actual-contract audit hour ratio of 1.1 or more, and the degree (slope) of the audit fee adjustment was low (sticky) in the sample at the 0.9 and 1.1 levels of the actual-contract audit hours ratio. This also indicates that there is a non-linear “S”-type relationship between the actual-contract audit fees and hours ratio, but such audit fee adjustments are significant only for upward fee increases (not significant for downward fee reductions). This phenomenon appears to be due to the fixed audit fee contract practice in Korean audit market, which support the FSS’s position to actively monitor the audit fee contract practices, focusing on under-investing audit hours despite of the increased audit fees. Overall, the above survey results are evidence of the stickiness of audit fees in Korean audit market. This study raises policy implications for future management and supervisions on audit hours and fees by investigating the present overview of Korean audit contracts with respect to the audit fee contract types and audit fee adjustment system potentially linked to actual-contract audit hours deviations, and by examining the characteristics of companies with actual-contract audit hours and fees differences.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Contract audit fees, Contract audit hours, Actual audit fees, Actual audit hours, Audit fee stickiness
