At its meeting on March 5-6, 2018, the AASB discussed issues related to implementing the new auditor reporting standards and the significant challenges in preparing a combined U.S. and Canadian auditors report for 2018 and subsequent years. These challenges are due to many differences between the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) standards released in June 2017 and the CASs. The Board deliberated whether to make any changes to the CASs to facilitate a combined auditor’s report; in particular, to address key requirements related to:

• disclosure of the engagement partner’s name in the auditor’s report;
• more extensive disclosures about management’s and the auditor’s responsibilities, as well as the location of this information; and
• reporting of other information.

The Board compared various options for creating a combined U.S. and Canadian auditor’s report and their implications. The Board also considered the challenges of complying with reporting requirements in CAS 720, The Auditor’s Responsibilities Relating to Other Information. The Board will continue to discuss these and other issues at future meetings.

Review the executive summary on the AASB's Web site.