Two forms of expertise can influence audit quality: industry and task-specific expertise. Anecdotal evidence suggests that tax knowledge is task-specific, rather than industry-specific and audit offices with increased exposure to complex tax issues develop this task-specific expertise. Using...

This study examines the association between the industry diversity of an audit office and audit quality, where industry diversity is the extent to which clients differ by industry classification. We find a negative association between industry diversity and audit quality that is robust to...