Do the Prhibition of Non-Audit Services Affects the Audit Quality and Fees? Evedince from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to find an answer to the question: does the prohibition of non-audit services affect the audit quality and audit fees in Saudi Arabia. A questionnaire survey was used to pick-up opinions from a sample of auditors who are working at Big-4 and non Big-4 audit firms. The results suggest that preventing joint NAS and audit services will lead to the decrease in the number of auditors who provide audit services and hence audit fees would increase. Furthermore, auditors select NAS on the account of audit services due to the less effort required and the higher income gained. It is expected that audit services will be carried out by small audit firms of less experienced and unqualified staff. Demographics as auditors’ academic degree and experience have influenced the respondent auditors’ perceptions on some of the questions. It was found that type of audit firm has no impact on auditors’ perceptions, where all auditors expressed the same views on the impact of the NAS on the audit fees and the audit quality.  It is hope that the findings of this study would pave the way for policy setters to find out the mechanisms that would help in controlling audit fees and ensure a high level of audit quality in the audit market of Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: Auditing, non-audit services, audit quality, audit fees, Saudi Arabia