Inflation, Labor Push Up Corporate Audit Costs to Record Highs

Inflation, a tight labor market, and the end of the SPAC boom drove up the cost of 2022 financial statement audits to a record high, a new report on audit fees finds.

Publicly traded companies paid a total of $16.8 billion in audit fees last year, a slight increase from 2021 when they doled out $16.6 billion. Those companies paid an average $2.2 million per audit, up 11% from the $2 million they paid the previous year, according to an Ideagen Audit Analytics report released Tuesday.

• The flood of special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, with their ...