Independence Tops the List (Once More) on Inspections of Broker-Dealer Audits

I covered this in an earlier blog post, but an article by Terry Sheridan of Accounting Web nicely summarizes the key takeaways from the PCAOB's most recent (2016) Inspection report on the audits of broker-dealers, including (no drum roll needed) independence deficiencies for performing bookkeeping and related services for clients. The other independence-related deficiencies were for failure to communicate with the audit committee on independence matters before starting the audit and annually thereafter.  No news there either (unfortunately).