What Is an Attestation? What Distinguishes an Attest Engagement from Other

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Examlex · Accepted Answer

The Answer is a. Attestation is a special form of assurance engagement. In order to meet the criteria of an attest engagement, the reporting party has to make a written assertion about the subject matter of interest, the attestation report must apply only to the reliability of the written assertion (not the relevance), and the report must be in writing.
b. Four basic conditions distinguish an attest engagement from other assurance services:
i) There must be an assertion being made by one party, the accuracy of which is of interest to another party. This assertion may be quantitative or qualitative in nature.
ii) Objective criteria must exist that can be utilized to assess the accuracy of the assertion. All parties must agree as to how the assertion is to be evaluated using a common unit of measure and measurement technology.
iii) The assertion must be amenable to verification by an independent party. That is, the accountant must be able to obtain adequate, diagnostic evidence to support or refute the assertion being made.
iv) The public accountant should prepare a written conclusion about the accuracy of the assertion(s).

What Is an Attestation? What Distinguishes an Attest Engagement from Other

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