ACCA考试答题技巧

正确答案：
(b) Draft guidance
(i) Gifts and hospitality
Gifts and hospitality may be offered as an inducement i.e. to unduly influence actions or decisions, encourage illegal or
dishonest behaviour or to obtain confidential information. An offer of gifts and/or hospitality from a client ordinarily gives
rise to threats to compliance with the fundamental principles, for example:
■ self-interest threats to objectivity and/or confidentiality may be created if a gift from a client is accepted;
■ intimidation threats to objectivity and/or confidentiality may arise through the possibility of such offers being made
public and damaging the reputation of the professional accountant (or close family member).
The significance of such threats will depend on the nature, value and intent behind the offer. There may be no significant
threat to compliance with the fundamental principles if a reasonable and informed third party would consider gifts and
hospitality to be clearly insignificant. For example, if the offer of gifts or hospitality is made in the normal course of
business without the specific intent to influence decision making or to obtain information.
If evaluated threats are other than clearly insignificant, safeguards should be considered and applied as necessary to
eliminate them or reduce them to an acceptable level.
Offers of gifts and hospitality should not be accepted if the threats cannot be eliminated or reduced to an acceptable
level through the application of safeguards.
As the real or apparent threats to compliance with the fundamental principles do not merely arise from acceptance of
an inducement but, sometimes, merely from the fact of the offer having been made, additional safeguards should be
adopted. For example:
■ immediately informing higher levels of management or those charged with governance that an inducement has
been offered;
■ informing third parties (e.g. a professional body) of the offer (after seeking legal advice);
■ advising immediate or close family members of relevant threats and safeguards where they are potentially in
positions that might result in offers of inducements (e.g. as a result of their employment situation); and
■ informing higher levels of management or those charged with governance where immediate or close family
members are employed by competitors or potential suppliers of that organisation.

正确答案：
(c) Financial advisor
■ Customer due diligence (CDD) and record-keeping measures apply to designated non-financial businesses and
professions (such as Dedza) who prepare for or carry out certain transactions on behalf of their clients.
■ Esau is a ‘politically exposed person’ (‘PEP’) (i.e. an individual who is to be entrusted with prominent public functions
in a foreign country).
■ Dedza’s business relationships with Pholey therefore involve reputational risks similar to those with Esau. In addition
to performing normal due diligence measures Dedza should:
? have risk management systems to have determined that Esau is a PEP;
? obtain senior partner approval for maintaining business relationships with such customers;
? take reasonable measures to establish the source of wealth and source of funds;
? conduct enhanced ongoing monitoring of the business relationship.
■ Dedza can choose to decline to act for Pholey and/or Esau (if asked).
■ If the business relationship is to be continued senior partner approval should be obtained for any transactions carried
out on Pholey’s behalf in future.
Tutorial note: The Pholey family is not described as an audit client therefore no familiarity threat arises in relation to an
audit (the family may not have any involvement in entities requiring an audit).

正确答案：
6 CERTAIN PRACTICES
Tutorial note: The answer which follows is indicative of the range of points which might be made. Other relevant material will
be given suitable credit.
(a) ‘Lowballing’
Explanation of term
‘Lowballing’ is the ‘loss-leading’ practice in which auditors compete for clients by reducing their fees for statutory audits.
Lower audit fees are then compensated by the auditor carrying out more lucrative non-audit work (e.g. consultancy and tax
advice). Audits may even be offered for free.
Such ‘predatory pricing’ may undercut an incumbent auditor to secure an appointment into which higher price consultancy
services may be sold.
Ethical risks
There is a risk of incompetence if the non-audit work does not materialise and the lowballing firm comes under pressure to
cut corners or resort to irregular practices (e.g. the falsification of audit working papers) in order to ‘keep within budget’.
However, a lack of audit quality may only be discovered if the situation arises that the company collapses and the auditors
are charged with negligence.
If, rather than comprise the quality of the audit, an audit firm substantially increases audit fees, a fee dispute could arise. In
this case the client might refuse to pay the higher fee. It could be difficult then for the firm to take the matter to arbitration
if the client was misled. Thus an advocacy threat may arise.
Financial dependence is a direct incentive that threatens independence. A self-interest threat therefore arises when, having
secured the audit, the audit firm needs the client to retain its services in order to recoup any losses initially incurred.
The provision of many other services gives rise to a self-review threat (as well as a self-interest threat).
Sufficiency of current ethical guidance
In current ethical guidance, the fact that an accountancy firm quotes a lower fee than other tendering firms is not improper,
providing that the prospective client is not misled about:
– the precise range of services that the quoted fee is intended to cover; and
– the likely level of fees for any other work undertaken.
This is clearly insufficient to prevent the practice of lowballing.
Legal prohibitions on the provision of many non-audit services (e.g. bookkeeping, financial information systems design and
implementation, valuation services, actuarial services, internal audit (outsourced), human resource services for executive
positions, investment and legal services) should make lowballing a riskier pricing strategy. This may curb the tendency to
lowball.
Lowballing could be eliminated if, for example, auditors were required to act ‘exclusively as auditors’. Although regulatory
environments have moved towards this there is not a total prohibition on non-audit services.