The Effect of Audit Fee Discount on its Compensation and the Quality of Accounting Information with an Emphasis on the Role of the Auditor's Expertise

The role of the independent auditor in evaluating the quality of the financial statements impartially and in assuring investors of the validity of the financial statements prepared by management is important. However, the quality of audit services provided by auditors is heterogeneous and is affected by factors such as audit fees. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between auditing fee reduction and compensation and the quality of accounting information with emphasis on the role of auditor expertise in companies listed on Iran's capital market. This research is of descriptive correlation type and is based on an analysis of panel data. The independent variable in this study includes auditing fee reduction and the dependent variable of accounting information quality and auditing fee compensation. The examined sample was obtained by systematic elimination method including 86 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during a ten-year period from 2011 to the end of 2021. The results show that there is a significant direct relationship between the reduction of the audit fee and its compensation, but the expertise of the auditor has no significant effect on this relationship. Also, the reduction of auditing fees does not have a significant effect on the quality of accounting information.