Structural conflicts of interest make independent auditors structurally incapable of full candor.

Evidence

For accounting firms, for example, half or more of whose revenue may be provided by a single client, truthful negative revelations are often acts of corporate suicide. … Even when CPAs are too scrupulous to accept bribes to cook the books or look the other way, their firms may be unable to afford to lose valuable clients by pursuing full candor (Seidler, Andrews, and Epstein 1977). — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 119

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The deeper point: the institutions designed to police trust are themselves wired to betray it by their own economics — candor is made a ‘corporate suicide’ not by bad faith but by revenue concentration.
• SHARE: Auditor independence as economic impossibility is a strong specific point for someone in accounting, finance, or corporate governance.