Comments due: November 22, 2010

On August 23, 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued for comment Government Auditing Standards (Yellow Book) 2010 Exposure Draft  (GAO-10-853G, August  2010).  The comment period ends November 22, 2010.

According to the Exposure Draft, the major changes in the proposed revision were made to:

• Consolidate and reorganize the foundation and ethical principles for government audits and the standards for use and application of GAGAS (chapters 1 and 2)
• Add a conceptual framework approach for independence (chapter 3)
• Update the financial audit standards to (1) reflect recent updates to the auditing standards issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), where applicable, (2) more clearly identify the GAGAS requirements and guidance that supplement AICPA requirements for financial audits, and (3) consolidate the financial audit standards into a single chapter (chapter 4)
• Further clarify application of the attestation engagement standards to clearly distinguish the requirements related to each type of attestation work (chapter 5)
• Update the performance audit standards to (1) limit the fraud reporting requirement to occurrences that are significant within the context of the audit objectives, with a requirement to communicate other instances of fraud in writing to those charged with governance, and (2) revise the discussion of validity as an aspect of the quality of evidence (chapters 6 and 7)
• Clarify language throughout the document

Comments should be e-mailed no later than November 22, 2010.

Click here to view the release

Click here to access the What You Need to Know About the 2010 Yellow Book Exposure Draft - Member Web Event