UK asks whether medium-sized companies should be exempt from statutory audit

Britain is considering extending the statutory audit exemption to medium-sized companies, those below two of three limits: £54m of annual turnover, £27m of gross assets and 250 employees.

The government's 70-page consultation would create one SME reporting regime and let eligible companies choose whether to obtain an audit. Public-interest entities and specified regulated financial businesses would remain outside the exemption.

Nothing has changed yet.

The paper also proposes four principal accounting standards, moving detailed requirements out of company law and replacing the realised-profit test for dividends with a solvency test. It asks whether Britain should remove the annual advisory shareholder vote on directors' pay and CEO-to-employee pay-ratio reporting.

Responses close on 30 November.