Abstract:
This study aimed at examining the effects of audit expectations gap on financial audit towards
auditors' responsibilities in Northern Zone, Tanzania. Specifically, the study sought to examine
the factors for audit expectation gap, assess the responsibilities of auditors with respect to
minimization of audit expectations gap and examine effect of the audit expectations gap in
relation to auditors' responsibilities. Using a cross sectional research design, data were collected
from the selected audit firms operating and with headquarters. Purposive and convenience
sampling procedures were used to select 90 respondents from Audit firms and ACB Plc. The
findings revealed that audit expectations gap results from unreasonable expectation of users of
financial statement, communication of the extent of audit engagement, soundness of the internal
control, nature of the audit work and expectations of users. Again, there is a relationship between
audit expectations gap and auditors' responsibilities and that AEG affects the responsibility of
auditors on fraud detection, fraud prevention, objectivity of audit engagement and selection of
audit procedures. It was concluded that there are differences between the responsibilities that
auditors believe they have in carrying out their audit engagement and those which the users of the
financial information attribute to them. It is recommended that the board of accountants, auditors
and the standards committees should broaden the responsibilities of auditors on audit of complete
set of financial statements, the standard setters should consider revising the international auditing
standards and lastly, education to users of financial statement needs to be provided by the National
Board of Accountant and Auditors; inside and outside the organisations to reduce the audit
expectations gap.
