mahdi vakilian aghouei

The specialization of companies' activities and the necessity of competition in the financial markets have caused companies to take measures in order to maximize their benefits. In this situation, companies may try not to pay additional taxes and pay less taxes as much as possible and institutionalize a process of earnings management. This earnings management can lead to tax differences. The tax difference is the result of the discrepancy between the final tax and the declared tax and can be caused by tax evasion or tax avoidance. Since the main mission of the internal audit unit is to provide independent and impartial assurance and consulting services in order to add value and improve the company's operations, the present research seeks to determine the effect of internal audit quality on tax disputes with the moderating role of the audit committee. The current research is applied in term of nature of research; in terms of type of research, it is causal, which is conducted via a descriptivecorrelation method and based on multivariable linear regression model, after systematic elimination, using the information of 120 companies during the years 2015 to 2019 in SPSS software. The results showed that the quality of the internal audit had a positive effect and the characteristics of the audit committee had a negative effect on the tax difference of companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange, and the characteristics of the audit committee moderated the relationship between the quality of the internal audit and the tax difference in a negative direction.

This study examines the COSO Internal Control-Integrated Framework (2013) to determine the importance of these controls commensurate to firm size. For this study, a questionnaire was designed based on a Likert scale that includes 77 questions relating to five internal control components, i.e., the control environment, risk identification and assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring activities, and seventeen related principles. The questionnaires were distributed based on the random sampling method among 431 experts on internal control between March and December 2020. The answers were analyzed based on the structural equation method, doing the confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis.  

The statistical analysis results showed that all controls at the level of their components and seventeen principles affect the quality of financial reporting. Also, the importance of these controls in large companies has been significantly higher than in small companies. There has been a significant difference between large companies and small companies as to the importance of control. However, the importance of internal control in large companies compared to medium-sized companies and in medium-sized companies compared to small companies was not significantly different. Further analysis of these findings indicated that some of the COSO ​​​Internal Control—Integrated F​r​​amework (2013) requirements are not relevant to small firms.

The research results present a new perspective on the design and implementation of internal controls in small companies; the study identifies some COSO Internal Controls (2013) in companies, especially in small ones, as of no or little importance.

The present paper aims to investigate the impact of internal controls COSO (2013) on the quality of financial reporting with concentration of the relationship between prespectives of experts responsible for designing and deploying internal control with financial reporting quality criteria. In addition, as with the management responsibility regarding the design and deployment of internal controls, the views of these experts on the internal controls affecting the financial reporting is compared with the views of other internal control specialists. The study was an applied descriptive survey employing a Likert-scale questionnaire designed and validated by the researcher. The questionnaire included 77 questions on the five internal control elements and their seventeen principles. It was distributed among a randomly selected sample of 431 subjects including 101 specialists in charge of the design and deployment of internal control and 330 other internal control specialists. The gathered data was analyzed using structural equation modelling and confirmatory factor analysis. The results indicate that all internal controls of COSO (2013) have affected the financial reporting quality of listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange, and the views of the responsible professionals has a positive and significant relationship with voluntary accruals and the ability to predict profits as the criteria for financial reporting quality. Also, the views of the two above-mentioned specialists do not have a significant difference. The employ of the internal controls of COSO (2013) in the Iranian capital market and the positive views of the practitioners in charge in this regard will improve the quality of financial reporting. Contribution: The research results provide a new insight on the capability of the use of the internal controls of COSO (2013) in the Iranian capital market. .