Sarbanes-Oxley Act Acc 403- Auditing

Sarbanes –Oxley Act, enacted by the United States congress is aimed at protecting investors. The protection is provided by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures.

In July 2002, a corporate reform bill was passed into United States Federal law by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation introduced new and amended ethical standards regarding financial practice and corporate governance for all publicly traded U.S. companies, as well as for management and accounting organizations. U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley spearheaded the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act (Pub. L. 107-204) (Sarbanes & Oxley, 2002). This was originally known as “Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor

The Sarbanes-Oxley is a U.S. federal law that has generated much controversy, and involved the response to the financial scandals of some large corporations such as Enron, Tyco International, WorldCom and Peregrine Systems. These scandals brought down the public confidence in auditing and accounting firms. The law is named after Senator Paul Sarbanes Democratic Party and GOP Congressman Michael G. Oxley. It was passed by large majorities in both Congress and the Senate and covers and sets new performance standards for boards of directors and managers of companies and accounting mechanisms of all publicly traded companies in America. It also introduces criminal liability for the board of directors and a requirement by

The act requires management to disclose all material information or changes within their accounting processes. By requiring senior management to review the reports they are held accountable for the financial accounting of the firm, and procedures to prevent employees and other members within an organization from committing fraud or theft and management is legally responsible if material misstatements have been made. By making management accountable then they are less likely to commit fraud if faced with jail time. Management and stockholders frequently have different goals. Management often wishes to expand and use the company’s assets in different ways than a stockholder. Management’s accountability of the financial reports often helps encourage management to use company assets in appropriate ways. Disclosures were also a reduction in risk of fraud because all material information must be disclosed. By requiring this disclosure if a company’s net income increased this year due to a

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is a legislation enacted in 2002 under the sponsorship of U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley (R-OH). The law introduced increased government oversight for publicly held companies. It also imposes additional management responsibilities and corporate operating costs on companies trading under SEC regulations. Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted in direct response to a number of corporate accounting scandals, including those of Enron, Tyco International, and WorldCom.

          Title III of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is Corporate Responsibility. It creates many new obligations for CEOs, CFOs, and other senior executives. Title III requires that CEOs and CFOs must certify that they have reviewed annual as well as quarterly reports and that they contain no untrue information, material omissions, or misleading information. CEOs and CFOs are now responsible for establishing and maintaining internal controls, plus reviewing their effectiveness within 90 days prior to financial reports. They must disclose any deficiencies or possible fraud. The CEO and CFO are required to give back any bonuses or sale of company securities, if the company must restate financial statements due to material noncompliance or misconduct. High-ranking executives are also now banned from trading company securities during pension fund blackout periods. Lawyers are now required to report any evidence of violations of securities law or obligations to either the CEO of the company or chief legal counsel. If a person violates the law and their conduct demonstrates an unfitness to serve, he or she can be banned from being an executive of a company (Sarbanes-Oxley).

There are basically three important parts that a business must decide: whether they will/or will not comply with the act, and the costs of compliance. Some smaller public companies have decided to delist themselves as public companies rather than comply with Sarbanes. "I have no problem with these arguments because SOX compliance is costly, but SOX is also an opportunity for public corporation - and the non - profits, private companies, universities, etc., that voluntarily adopt its guidelines - to develop the controls and procedures that were not in place at Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, et al" (Ohaver 14). One thing that is important for many companies to realize is that the compliance with Sarbanes, may really not be as costly as one expected. Plus, many of the rules for compliance are consistent with proper accounting practices and disclosure that companies should have been doing all along. But, there will be increased costs as process, training and documentation are developed and implemented. Audit costs are the heaviest expenditure of SOX. Many experts believe that since the Sarbanes - Oxley Act has came into existence, audit costs are up 23% and that is only going to be a down payment on more to come (Downey). The additional audit costs can be attributed to the fact that many auditors are double and triple checking their work now, and also looking in

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, or SOX Act, was enacted on July 30, 2002. Since it was enacted that summer it has changed how the public business handle their accounting and auditing. The federal law was made coming off of a number of large corporations involved in scandals. For example a company like Enron was caught in accounting fraud in late 2001 when the company was using false financial statements. Once Enron was caught that had many lawsuits filed against them and had to file for bankruptcy. It was this scandal that played a big part in producing the Sarbanes-Oxley act in 2002.

This form could be different from the form that the branch manager sent to accounting

Moreover, the cost is an important part of the act for a company. The area of audits, increasing with the inclusion of section 404 that section refers to require to include an internal control procedure. Not only a public company spend the high price for the audits, but it also pays much money to internal control software, creates an internal plan, and track and review the company’s internal performance. Thus, an important point of the implementing the Sarbanes Oxley act in a business is the cost that direct and indirect of the act. In addition, the act reduces the number of errors that a company would make otherwise because the company uses much time to make and check the financial reports and establish the completely financial reports.

After major corporate and accounting scandals like those that affected Tyco, Worldcom and Enron the Federal government passed a law known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act. This law was passed in hopes of thwarting illegal and misleading acts by financial reporters and putting a stop to the decline of public trust in accounting and reporting practices. Two important topics covered in Sarbanes-Oxley are auditor independence and the reporting and assessment of internal controls under section 404.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is one of the most important legislations passed in the 21st century effecting financial practice and corporate governance. This act was passed on July 30, 2002 thanks to Representative Michael Oxley a republican from Ohio and Senator Paul Sarbanes a democrat from Maryland. They both passed two different bills that pertain to the same problem which had to do with corporation's auditing accountability and financial fraud problems within corporations. One was bill (S. 2673) brought by Senator Sarbanes and the other bill (H. R. 3763) brought by Representative Oxley. Both bills where passed separately one by the house and the other by the

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted in July 30, 2002, by Congress to protect shareholders and the general public from fraudulent corporate practices and accounting errors and to maintain auditor independence.   In protecting the shareholders and the general public the SOX Act is intended to improve the transparency of the financial reporting.   Financial reports are to be certified by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) creating increased responsibility and independence with auditing by independent audit firms. In discussing the SOX Act, we will focus on how this act affects the CEOs; CFOs; outside independent audit firms; the advantages and a

Effective internal controls protect a company’s assets, maintain compliance, improve operations, prevent fraud, and promote accuracy in financial reporting. In 1992 the