An exposure draft for a proposed standard just issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Auditing Standards Board focuses on improving communication between independent auditors and corporate audit committees.

The draft is called Amendments to Statement on Auditing Standards No. 61, “Communication With Audit Committees, “ and Statement on Auditing Standards No. 71, “Interim Financial Information.”

Auditors auditing public companies for fiscal years beginning with 2000 would be required to talk with management and the audit committee about the quality of the client’s accounting principles. This would be in addition to current practice where auditors discuss acceptability.

The proposed standard is the result of a combined effort between the Auditing Standards Board, the New York Stock Exchange, the National Association of Security Dealers and the SEC. Comments are due on the exposure draft (downloadable here with Adobe Acrobat reader) by November 30, 1999.