a discussion board for auditing

Many companies post their financial statements and auditor’s report on their home pages, generally under a heading labeled “investor relations.” Use one of the Internet search engines to do the following:

a. Visit Intel’s (www.intel.com) and Microsoft’s (www.microsoft.com) home pages and review their financial statements, including their auditors’ reports.

b. Search the web for the home page of a non-U.S. company and review its financial statements, including its auditor’s report. For example, BMW’s home page (www.bmwgroup.com ) under Investor Relations) allows a visitor to download the financial statements and accompanying audit report as a .pdf file. Identify the auditing standards followed by the company’s auditors. Include the website link or .pdf with your submission.

c. Compare the standard U.S. audit report with the audit report for the non-U.S. company (e.g., BMW). Note that in some cases, non-U.S.-based companies’ reports use a U.S. audit report.

d. Visit the SEC’s website (www.sec.gov), and find the link for EdgarScan. Find, download, and save as a .pdf the auditor’s report for a U.S. company of your choice. Identify whether or not the audit report is an unqualified, or “clean,” opinion and explain how you could tell. Include the .pdf with your submission.

Please include the links to the financial statements you use. Points will be deducted for poor grammar and misspelled words.

**Discussion means discussion! More is expected from a discussion question than a few brief sentences. Be sure to fully discuss the topic. Three points will only be awarded for submissions that fully address each topic.