Background

A cost that lately has been discussed related to audit is the higher cost for auditing of small stock company. The question is if this cost is higher than the total utility of statutory audit and should it in that case be statutory. SRF says that the condition for small stock companies development is an abolishment of statutory audit. FAR consider that auditing is important for development and continuation.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there are any winners or losers among auditing firms and accounting firms in Sweden if the statutory audit for small stock companies abolish.

Method

The paper is both a qualitative and a quantitative study that is based on primary data made from an interview and a questionnaire investigation.

Conclusion

Our conclusion is that the big Winner is the accounting trade. There will be a new divide from auditing trade to accounting trade. Mainly the big firm will benefit from an abolishment of statutory audit. The small auditing firms will be the biggest losers.