Fraud Risk Factor Of The Fraud Triangle Assessing The Likelihood Of Fraudulent Financial Reporting
Yung-I Lou, Nan Hua University, Chiayi, Taiwan
Ming-Long Wang, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
ABSTRACT
This research examines risk factors of the fraud triangle, core of all fraud auditing standards, for assessing likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting. Significant variables, including analyst’s forecast error, debt ratio, directors’ and supervisors’ stock pledged ratio, percentage of sales related party transaction, number of historical restatements, and number of auditor switch, belong to pressure/incentive, opportunity and attitude/rationalization. Results indicate fraudulent reporting positively correlated to one of the following conditions: more financial pressure of a firm or supervisor of a firm, higher percentage of complex transactions of a firm, more questionable integrity of a firm’s managers, or more deterioration in relation between a firm and its auditor. A simple logistic model based on examples of fraud risk factors of ISA 240 and SAS 99 gauges the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting and can benefit practitioners.
Keywords: Risk Factors, Fraudulent Financial Statements, Fraud Triangle, ISA 240, SAS 99
INTRODUCTION
large increase in the number of financial frauds reported and subsequent business failures have led to concerns about legitimacy of corporate financial statements. These concerns have led to new auditing standards and regulations targeting the need for investors, regulators and auditors to
concentrate on preventing and detecting such fraud. In 1988, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) issued a Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 53 entitled The Auditor’s Responsibility to Detect and Report Errors and Irregularities, which holds the auditor responsible for detecting errors and irregularities materially impacting financial statements. Yet Moyes and Hasan (1996) argued that negligible attention was given to auditors’ qualifications in detecting fraudulent financial reporting. Then SAS 82 entitled Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit was implemented in 1997 to assist auditors in detecting financial statement fraud in practice. SAS
82 also provided more explicit guidance on how auditors could achieve fraud detecting by looking at high-risk areas and categories. SAS 82 was superseded in 2002 by SAS 99 entitled Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit to expand procedures to detect fraud. Ramos (2003) argued that the new standard (SAS 99) aimed to auditors’ consideration of fraud incorporated fully into audit processes from the outset. Also in 2002, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) issued International Standards on Auditing (ISA) 240 entitled The Auditors’ Responsibility to Consider Fraud in an Audit of Financial Statements. Following ISA 240, the Auditing Standards Board of Taiwan issued a Statement on Auditing Standards (TSAS) 431 entitled The Auditor’s Responsibility to Consider Fraud in an Audit of Financial Statements in 2006.
Illustrative fraud risk factors of these fraud standards (SAS 99, ISA 240, TSAS 43) were based on the fraud triangle proposed in 1953 by D. R. Cressey in Other People’s Money: A Study in the Social Psychology of
1 From 2002, ISA 240 was revised for several times. The majority of TSAS 43 was adopted from the ISA 240 implemented on
Dec. 15, 2004.
Embezzlement. Interviewing persons convicted of embezzlement, Cressy categorized conditions in fraudulent financial activities into pressure/incentive, opportunity, and attitude/rationalization. Input from forensic and academic experts consistently showed that evaluation of information about fraud was enhanced when considered in such a context. Recent studies on risk assessment of fraudulent financial reporting have focused mainly on examining several potential fraud risk factors or red flags. Although red flag literature affords some insight into the likelihood of fraud, a list of related indicators involves a great deal of subjective judgment and nonpublic information available only to auditors or insiders of a firm (Persons, 1995). Investors and policymakers cannot access the red flag list to identify firms engaging in fraudulent reporting. Owusu-Ansah et al. (2002) criticized red flag questionnaires as rather general, subjective and difficult to apply in practice. Eining et al. (1997) found auditors using a checklist of risk factors performed no better risk assessment than unaided auditors. They demonstrated that auditors aided by a logit model achieved more accurate assessment than either checklist users or unaided auditors. The majority of researches in predicting fraud have employed data in the USA; the present study extends the issue to Taiwan’s data on three purposed aspects. First, we identify objective proxy variables rating pressure/incentive, opportunity, and attitude/rationalization, based on prior study. Second, each part of the fraud triangle is separately probed. Thirdly, we concoct and test our model to predict fraudulent financial statements, which can potentially benefit not only auditors or insiders but also investors and policymakers.
Samples examined in the present study are obtained from Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ), the Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center (TSFIPC)2, and Newspaper. We use one fraud firm to match five non-fraud firms. 97 fraud fs and matched 467 non-fraud firms are used to develop and test a logistic regression model for evaluation in the likelihood of fraudulent reporting. Results indicate fraudulent reporting positively correlated to one of the following conditions: more financial pressure of a firm or a firm supervisor, higher percentage of complex transactions of a firm, more questionable integrity of firm managers, or more deterioration in relation between a firm and its auditor. The results also provide a model for applicable proxy variable relating the fraud triangle to yield
86.5% accuracy classifications. Likewise, security supervisors can apply this model to identify firms for fraud investigation or monitoring. Moreover, through this model, investors can avoid fraud risk and be assisted in investment decisions. When auditors preliminary assess new client engagement, the model can also be applied to evaluation in the likelihood of fraudulent financial statement. The remaining sections of this paper are organized as follows. The next section discusses relevant fraud research. A subsequent section develops hypotheses and sample selection. Besides, empirical findings are reported and discussed. Finally, we present our conclusions.
PRIOR RESEARCH
During the past two decades, interests from academic scholars and practitioners in the field of fraudulent financial reporting have grown dramatically (Persons, 1995; Beasley, 1996; Bell and Carcello, 2000; Kaminski et al.
2004). Albrecht and Romney (1986) published the first empirical study offering usefulness of red flags to predict fraud. Later, AICPA-issued SAS 53 clarifies auditors’ responsibility for detecting fraud in 1988, and a large body of research has focused on risk assessment of fraudulent financial reporting for examining potential fraud risk factors or red flags. Loebbecke, Eining, and Willingham (1989) formulated a predictive model based on outlining numerous risk factors of SAS No. 53. Further researches expanded the model of Loebbecke, Eining, and Willingham (1989) to list red flags (Bell et al., 1991; Bell and Carcello, 2000; Hansen et al. 1996; Apostolou et al., 2001; Nieschwietz et al., 2000; Wilks and Zimbelman, 2004). The majority of these empirical studies were performed by surveys targeting external or internal auditors with questionnaires, where fraud risk factors were included in SAS 53 or SAS
82. While red flag studies offer some intelligence about fraud, a questionnaire is criticized to be lengthy and subjective. Bell and Carcello (2000) used a large number of variables (47 factors plus all possible interactions) to predict. Albrecht and Romney (1986) cited 87 red flags in survey. Their data on most of these factors were unavailable to other researchers or other users, and it is difficult to perform red flags in empirical operation (Owusu-Ansah et al., 2002). Lack of management integrity has been cited as a red flag, and it has referred to
2 According to the law for securities and futures investors protection practiced as of Jan. 1, 2002, the Taiwanese Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center (TSFIPC) was established. TSFIPC provided assistance about consultation and complaint-filing for securities and futures investors.
subjective judgment. Cottrell and Albrecht (1994) argued that red flags were neither predictive nor absolute. Pincus (1989) considered questionnaires having no definite impact on fraud risk assessment. Asare and Wright (2004) found that auditors who used a checklist structured by SAS 82 risk categories made less effective diagnosis of the fraud than those without a checklist.
Another group of studies has examined whether financial ratios (analytical procedures) were useful in identifying fraud. Calderon and Green (1994) published the first empirical fraud risk research by using publicly available information to construct fraud model. A wide range of analytical procedures was extensively applied and included both financial and operating data (Calderon and Green 1994; Blocher and Cooper, 1988; Blocher, 1992). Persons (1995) only employed financial ratio affecting likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting and indicated financial leverage, capital turnover, asset composition and firm size as significant factors in detecting fraud. Heiman-Hoffman et al. (1996) documented that atti
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..