Wow I 100% agree with the White House on an issue

[AllentownJake]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/white-house-quietly-worki_n_340791.html

The White House is working to exempt smaller publicly held companies from SOX. I 100% agree. Actually if the White House wants to repeal SOX and focus more on auditor independence I would never say another critical thing about the White House a day in my life.

SOX is a stupid bill and has done nothing to prevent financial malfeasense. It is expensive and a waste of time.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Cherish this moment.

:P

[Arkana]

2. YES.

Thank GOD. SOX is inefficient, ugly, and fucking ANNOYING AS HELL.

In my last job, I was responsible for gathering data for the controls my company had written. Not only did they overlap in several places, but they asked for stuff we didn't even have. It pissed me off.

[Cant trust em]

4. I support regulation, but whenever I talk to someone who has to do the work...

I feel sorry for them for all of the paperwork that they have to do.

[Arkana]

6. Regulation I don't mind--but for the love of all that is fucking holy

HAVE A DEPARTMENT DEVOTED TO IT.

For chrissakes, my company had written their own controls--and my department, which was the one being tested, was testing itself.

We weren't required to comply with SOX but we were doing it voluntarily--mostly because the CEO knew the investors would be reassured. But my GOD. It's so goddamn annoying--and so badly executed--that it's almost not worth doing it.

[Cant trust em]

3. I was just reading this article and looking for some alternative analysis.

Thanks for posting.

[ProSense]

5. This is nothing new.

Kerry has been pushing a small business exemption for years.

In fact, it appears that's the track the WH is on

[AllentownJake]

11. I thought you'd be happy

and I know very well about Senator Kerry, this is the house

[SpartanDem]

7. Of course HuffPo is gonna spin this as badly as possible

it's become nothing more than a worthless shitty left wing Drudge.

[Common Sense Party]

8. They should count up all the billions and billions of productive

work hours that have been WASTED on SOX paperwork and compliance. How much better off would American companies be without it?

[Arkana]

9. Not all parts of SOX are bad.

The idea of "separation of duties" is a good one--it keeps one person from being a linchpin that could break an entire process. If done right, there will be no slowdown.

But the controls--the vast amount of data required for them is just stupid.

[AllentownJake]

13. A normal good audit would expose those weaknesses

and evaluate them. Focus instead on making sure the auditors are not too comfy with the management of companies and you will do better.

[boppers]

10. 75 million dollars is not exactly a "small company".

...and I've found implementation is drop-dead easy IF a company already has reasonable documentation, standards and practices, etc. It's very expensive and difficult for companies that have been playing fast and loose with the facts, or have been ignoring industry best practices (especially in IT)...

Is there a certain piece you disagree with greatly?

[AllentownJake]

12. I've been through 3 SOX implementations

I can say this, I've never seen them as easy and it took auditors away from other auditing to focus on compliance.

[boppers]

14. People going "out of process" is part of life.

Kindergarten never ends.

In companies where folks were allowed to act like small children, it can be a brutal change.

In the ISO 9000 (etc.) and Sarbox changing companies I've worked with, though, once the kids knew the rules, they could follow them.

As far as taking auditors away from one thing, to focus on basic compliance, I think I understand (which means I probably don't), in the same sense that NCLB made teachers focus on minimal compliance.

With NCLB and Sarbox, parties complained about difficulties of compliance.
With NCLB and Sarbox, parties complained about the "minimum".

Yes, it can be rough, but the bare minimum of compliance isn't much.

[AllentownJake]

15. Have we had more financial accounting scandals

or less since the implementation of SOX.

I'll give you a hint, if SOX was effective, we would never be in the situation we are in today.

[boppers]

16. Would Maddoff still be running his scam?

Is less regulation the solution?

[AllentownJake]

17. SOX had good components

and bad components. The documentation standards were stupid, the auditor independence standards were a good start.

Focus on more auditor independence and accountability and audits will improve and the scandals will fade.

The problem we have is a fundamental conflict of interest. When the auditor is paid by the company that it is auditing, the investors are not the client of the auditor.

Bernie was a private company, he would never be accountable to any kind of regulation like SOX. SOX is designed to protect share holders, Bernie's investors were never share holders