July 15, 2013 letter commenting on the AICPA's Auditing Standards Board (ASB) April 2013 exposure draft for a proposed Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS), entitled "Using the Work of Internal Auditors"

This letter provides the U.S. Government Accountability Office's (GAO) comments on the ASB's proposed SAS. We support the ASB's efforts to redraft SAS No. 65 to apply clarity drafting conventions and to converge with the International Standards on Auditing (ISAs). We believe that the divergences from the ISA 610 (Revised 2013), Using the Work of Internal Auditors, proposed in the Exposure Draft are necessary and appropriate. Although we acknowledge the ASB's commitment to harmonize its standards to the analogous standards of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), we concur with the ASB that the use of the work of internal auditors represents a current and accepted practice in the United States that does not appear to have detracted from overall audit quality, and we agree with the ASB's use of terms or phrases that are more commonly used in the United States.