Legally, the hired professional is an advisor. The board/management are collectively responsible for picking a good advisor and double-checking his/her recommendations.
Bottom line: no one takes responsibility for anything (unless they're on the board) and you are on the hook for everything.
This also applies to lawyers, property professionals, medical professionals, engineers, architects, and so on.
Of course this is outrageously unfair, but the reality is that winning compensation for incompetence and malpractice is incredibly hard and expensive - and most professional contracts include explicit disclaimers of responsibility in an attempt to make it even harder.
There's no reason why this is outrageously unfair. An external consultant is only held to an advisory standard because they are external - they are not party to the detailed nuances that management may have inadvertently or deliberately concealed.
It's outrageously unfair because when you hire an advisor you typically know so little about their domain of expertise you have no idea what questions to ask them.
So you have no effective oversight over the quality - or otherwise - of their work.
Of course you can hire another professional to double check the advice of the first professional, but that soon gets expensive, you're pretty much guaranteed some angry muttering, and you're still not guaranteed a reasonable outcome.
It's a remarkable fact that consumers have more rights when buying a toaster than when hiring an accountant or lawyer - and the toaster is going to be more reliable, and much less expensive to run.
Sounds like what they should have gotten was "audit insurance". IDK if such a thing exists, but if it does I'd think you could reduce your premiums if you can prove your risk is low (by providing documentation, or by getting sign-off by a 3rd party tax accountant).
Point is, I'd want to pay money to remove my liability, not just reduce its likelihood.
Legally, the hired professional is an advisor. The board/management are collectively responsible for picking a good advisor and double-checking his/her recommendations.
Bottom line: no one takes responsibility for anything (unless they're on the board) and you are on the hook for everything.
This also applies to lawyers, property professionals, medical professionals, engineers, architects, and so on.
Of course this is outrageously unfair, but the reality is that winning compensation for incompetence and malpractice is incredibly hard and expensive - and most professional contracts include explicit disclaimers of responsibility in an attempt to make it even harder.