Comment Letter on ASB Proposed Statement of Auditing Standards

Earlier this year, the Auditing Standards Board (ASB) issued an exposure draft of a proposed change to the auditing standard which, if adopted, would make radical changes in audit reports for employee benefit plans.  BMF, as a well-recognized industry leader in employee benefit plan auditing, has issued a comment letter to the ASB recommending changes and identifying deficiencies in this proposed new reporting model.  Should this new model be adopted, the auditors’ report would include significantly more information than it does currently, including a new report on findings from specified procedures, and we are deeply concerned that these reports, which would be public information on the DOL’s EFAST2 website, would be damaging to benefit plans and their constituents (participants, sponsors and administrators).

A link to our comment letter is below, and we will keep you, our clients and friends, aware of further developments on this matter.

Comment Letter on Proposed SAS

James E. Merklin, CPA/CFF, CFE, CGMA, MAcc
Partner In Charge, Assurance Services