상장기업 감사보수 변화와 국가별 비교를 통한 시사점

This study aims at investigating the appropriateness of audit fees of Korean listed companies by analyzing the time-serial changes of audit fees and related systems over the past 15 years and conducting international comparison of audit fees across G7 countries. Over the last past 15 years, the average audit fee of Korean listed companies has increased by 2.67 times from 83,734 thousand won in 2006 to 223,635 thousand won in 2020. This increase in audit fee is due to the change of average audit hours which increased 2.29 times from 1,018 hours in 2006 to 2,334 hours in 2020. The increase in audit hours is primarily attributable to the introduction of K-IFRS and the enforcement of the New External Audit Act. During the same period, however, audit fee per hour, which is the price of the audit service, has hardly changed. In addition, international comparison across G7 countries shows that the average audit fee of Korean listed companies is lowest among the major advanced countries over the past 10 years. These results collectively imply that the current level of audit fee in Korea is still low as compared to the global benchmark and audit fees in Korea are in a process of being normalized. This study is expected to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of general audit fee changes in Korea and, thus, a reduction of discrepancy in the perception of auditors and companies on the appropriateness of recent audit fee changes.