If you pay the Big 4 enough money, they will look the other way or not ask for supporting documentation. Just google accounting scandals and see just how many of these shops were audited by the Big 4.
Any tax authority worth their budget should require extra evidence from any Big-4 customer. By now it's clear they are less reliable than your average smalltown accountant.
Unfortunately, there is typically a big revolving door between them and any tax institution. Why toil for decades in underpaid public roles, when you can step into the gilded world of consultancy and double or treble your salary? It's like the yacht scene in The Wolf of Wall Street, except in real life most civil servants take the corrupting deal (and I can't even blame them).
It really depends on the terms of the audit. Routine financial audits are not intended to be exhaustive forensic audits that assume every document might be forged as part of a massive fraud.
Most audits are just “does the documentation support the reporting”.
Isn’t that just because most of the biggest companies are audited by the Big 4, and in order to be a big accounting scandal, you need to be a big company?
I feel like this is pointing out something like, “More criminals drive Ford trucks than any other truck” which is true, but just because more people drive that brand than any other?
A Ford truck is not able to consciously collude with the criminal.
Partners in the small set of auditors/accountants that can deal with big companies will kindly send the command to overlook certain important documents if they are paid enough.
Sure, but arguing that requires separate evidence other than "all the biggest frauds were committed by companies audited by the big 4". That observation adds no evidence.
