AU-C Section 210.18: Auditor's Report Prescribed by Law or Regulation

AU-C Section 210.18 says:

"If law or regulation prescribes a specific layout, form, or wording of the auditor's report that significantly differs from the requirements of GAAS, the auditor should evaluate 

1. whether users might misunderstand the auditor's report and, if so,
2. whether the auditor would be permitted to reword the prescribed form to be in accordance with the requirements of GAAS or attach a separate report.

If the auditor determines that rewording the prescribed form or attaching a separate report would not be permitted or would not mitigate the risk of users misunderstanding the auditor's report, the auditor should not accept the audit engagement unless the auditor is required by law or regulation to do so. An audit performed in accordance with such law or regulation does not comply with GAAS. Accordingly, for such an audit, the auditor should not include any reference to the audit having been performed in accordance with GAAS within the auditor's report."

If a law or regulation prescribes the structure and wording of the auditor's report and it's not in accordance with GAAS, the Auditor needs to decide whether users might misunderstand the report; if the Auditor thinks they would, he should reword it to be in accordance with GAAS, or refuse to accept the engagement.  If he does decide to issue that report, he should not reference GAAS, because the report is not in compliance with GAAS.


https://www.aicpa.org/content/dam/aicpa/research/standards/auditattest/downloadabledocuments/au-c-00210.pdf