The impact of unreasonable expectations of the financial statements users on the audit expectations gap in Palestine

Abstract

This paper aims to determine the structure of unreasonable expectation gap in Palestine by evaluating the perceptions of financial statements users’ in Palestine about auditor responsibilities, goals and usefulness of auditing, and the lack of knowledge about auditing profession in general. To achieve this goal questionnaire was established including items were designated to answer the hypotheses of the study. (300) questionnaires were distributed for the internal and external users of financial statements. (232) questionnaires were reached. This number represents (77.33%) of the distributed questionnaires. Descriptive, T-test, and Non-Parametric test were used Specifically Kruskal –Wallis. The results of study found evidence of a wide unreasonable audit expectation gap in Palestine. In the areas of auditor responsibility, audit benefits and goals, and some issues that related to audit profession in general, furthermore, the study found that there are significant statistical differences in the average of correspondent opinions about the structure of unreasonable expectation gap.