Last week, the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) issued an Exposure Draft, Proposed Revisions to Part 4B of the Code to Reflect Terms and Concepts Used in ISAE 3000 (Revised).
Part 4B of the IESBA Code contains the independence provisions for assurance engagements other than audit and review engagements, as defined in the Code. In December 2013, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) revised ISAE 3000, primarily by clarifying the different types of assurance engagements and identifying various parties' roles and responsibilities. Those changes necessitated conforming changes to Part 4B of the Code, which were put on hold while the Code was restructured.
The proposal would:
- revise key terminology, including the term “assurance client”;
- enhance and clarify independence requirements for attestation engagements;
- clarify the types of assurance engagements addressed in Part 4B;
- simplify guidance on assurance engagements, i.e., refer to the IAASB literature as the definitive source of explanatory material on such engagements.
Comments on this proposal are due June 26, 2019.
