Do Governmental CSR Policies Assist Consumers or Organizations

The law was enacted on July 30, 2002. The act is commonly known as SOX. SOX is a united states federal law. It sets improved standards for all US public company boards, management and public accounting firms. The law emphasises that it’s the duty of the top management to ensure and certify the accuracy of financial information. The law exert that If there exist some fraudulent act in financial activity, the penalty is severe. SOX bind to both the board of directors and outside auditors. It increases formers assessing role and latters independence.

Also in section 301 of The SOX Act, internal reporting of potential financial misappropriation of funds via anonymous whistleblowers is mandated. SOX 301 requires that audit committees of issuers listed on U.S. exchanges “establish procedures” for (i) receipt, retention, and treatment of complaints regarding accounting, internal accounting controls, or auditing matters; and (ii) confidential, anonymous submission by employees of concerns regarding questionable accounting or auditing matters.  SOX 301 was codified as

These scandals shared characteristics of skewed reporting of financial transactions. Congress hoped the Act would address the problems by holding senior management accountable for financial transactions and require more involvement from the board of directors. Several provisions of SOX are aimed toward strengthening corporate governance regarding antifraud efforts. Misreporting of the sales creates a false sense that United Thermostatic Controls met their budgeted sales numbers. Misreporting revenue violates multiple sections of SOX Act placing United Thermostatic Controls at risk. According to the SOX definition of internal control over financial reporting, United Thermostatic Controls is in violation because the company cannot provide reasonable assurance that the financial statements were prepared for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles specifically pertaining to the disposition of assets possessing a material effect on financial statements.

Lastly, for the portion of domestic antitrust, we will examine the Sarbanes Oxley Act. Enacted in 2002 it increases transparency in accounting. It was designed to prevent accounting errors and fraud in financial disclosures. The SOX act stipulates that the periodic financial reports be carried out in a certain way. The signing officers must review and certify the report prior to release. They are required to make sure all information is clear, true, not misleading and does not omit any important details. The signing officers are also required to evaluate the internal controls and their effectiveness within ninety days of the report. If there are any areas of internal control that are not working or may have issues they must also report this, along with any responsible employees. Finally, they must make sure the financial picture is being fairly portrayed through all of this.

The purpose of this memo is to provide you with information on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX Act) and to describe the importance of its implementation, per your request. The SOX Act was first introduced in the house as the “Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency Act of 2002” by Michael Oxley on February 14, 2002. Paul Sarbanes, a Democrat U.S. Senator, collaborated with Mr. Oxley, a Republican US Senator, creating significant bipartisan support. The SOX Act was enacted by the end of July 2002 in response to recent corporate accounting scandals. The twin scandals that were impetus for the legislation involved the corporations of Enron and WorldCom.

According to Terry Sheridan, in the article, SOX Compliance is Still a Challenge- and Costly- for Many Companies, she states that “Aside from external audit fees,

Sarbanes–Oxley, Sarbox or SOX, is a United States federal law which was introduced in 2002. It is also known as the “Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act” and “and 'Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act”. The main objective of the act is to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures. New aspects are created by SOX act for corporate accountability as well as new penalties for wrong doings. It was basically introduced after major corporate and accounting scandals including the scandals of Enron, WorldCom etc so that the same kind of scandals do not repeat again.

However, the application of SOX has brought on regulations that public companies must put in place and follow to prohibit these unethical occurrences. One major advantage for associated with SOX is that more thorough audits are being conducted by auditing firms. Audits being conducted more thoroughly will provide accuracy and an increased reliability of financial data. This will affect taxes in a positive way and provide firms with an advantage. Causholli, Chambers, and Payne (2014) suggest that prior to the implementation of SOX in 2002, “an auditor’s opportunity to sell additional non-audit services in the subsequent year, coupled with the client’s willingness to buy services, intensified the economic bond between auditor and client, in turn reducing auditor independence and the quality of financial reporting” (p.681). The regulation of auditor provided non-audit tax services has increased the reliability of tax and financial reporting within companies. Seetharaman, Sun, and Wang (2011) explain that “in a post-Sarbanes-Oxley environment, the benefits of auditor-provided non-audit tax services (NATS) seem to manifest themselves in higher quality tax-related financial statement management assertions” (p. 677).

Most people agree that the SOX Act provides the most comprehensive amendments to the 33 and 34 Acts in United State history. Due to the stricter financial law from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, other international countries have adopted similar laws such as Australia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Africa, and Turkey to help with it came to financial reporting. The SOX Act have 11 mandate and requirement for corporations to report their financial statements. The following are the 11madate titles and requirement under the Sarbanes-Oxley

Public companies issuing securities, public accounting firms, and firms providing auditing services whether they are domestic or foreign must comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. (Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 404, 2002) Additionally, publicly traded companies with a market capitalization greater than $75 million must comply with these new rules. (Don E. Garner, 2008) A company’s management is required to provide an external auditor with all financial statements for the current review period. Upon reviewing these statements the auditor issues a report classified as unqualified, unqualified with explanation, qualified, adverse, or disclaimer based on what they find or do not find. All public companies reports are available on the Securities Exchange Committees website, below is a sample of what this report looks like. You can imagine what a relief this was for investors, to be able to search any company and find statements solidifying their prospective investment.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in the most general terms is a law passed by the United States Congress to help stop publicly traded corporations and their leaders from committing accounting and financial fraud. The act is made up of various sections but we will go into detail only about a few of them including Section 302, Section 404, Section 409, and section 802 which deal directly with IT (Brown, 2005, 313). Section 302 deals directly with the officers of a company and requires them to “make representations related to the disclosure of internals controls, procedures, and assurance from fraud (Brown, 2005, 313).” In other words, companies will be required to have their CEOs and CFOs sign off on all publicly made financial statements. Also, in a recent survey “44 percent of the companies will require the CIO to certify financial results under SOX compliance (Brown, 2005, 313).” This certification will include the CIO signing a statement attesting to the accuracy of the financial statements as well as the effectiveness of

Sarbanes-Oxley Act has improved the quality of public company audit. SOX prohibited services to try and make auditing more independent. SOX added the role of the audit committee. SOX created the PCAOB. SOX instituted Sec 404 which gave management the responsibility of having to evaluate internal controls.

A recent study by Xue Wang (Emory University) tackles how SOX has affected the compensation and turnover rates of CFOs.   They play a critical role in developing firms’ financial reporting and making voluntary disclosure decisions.   Moreover, CFOs are ultimately responsible for the quality of internal control systems.   The study provides some important insights about the impact of SOX on the executive labor market.   It shows that requiring more disclosure of information about a firm’s internal controls provides some positive benefits with respect to corporate governance, in this case making it easier for boards to monitor the activities of CFOs.   In comparing and contrasting firms with strong internal controls received an increase in salary, bonus, and total compensation in the post-SOX time periods.   In contrast, CFOs of corporations reporting a problem with their internal controls incurred a significant reduction in their compensation packages.   With respect to CFO turnover, Wang did find that CFO turnover rates generally increased form the pre- to post-SOX period.

CSR is how companies control their business processes to provide an overall positive impact on society. There are many factors that determine how socially responsible a business is, but alongside these are the benefits and costs relating to the level of CSR produced in this essay, I will be analysing companies from the retail industry and a car manufacturer to discuss the potential costs and benefits to both business and their stakeholders of CSR.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was enacted into law in 2002 in the wake of corporation financial reporting scandals involving large publicly held companies. SOX instituted new strict financial regulations with the intent of improving accounting practices and protecting investors from corporate misconduct. SOX requires corporate executives to vouch for the accuracy of financial statements, and to institute and monitor effective internal controls over financial reporting. The cost of implementing an effective internal control structure are onerous, and SOX inflicts opportunity costs upon an enterprise as executives have