SOX Center

Small public companies nationwide now face major Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance headaches. The root of their discomfort is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) controversial yet unanimous decision on May 23 not to extend the SOX compliance deadline for companies with less than $75 million in market capital.

Fortunately for small business CEOs and CFOs, renewed peace of mind could be as simple as making a couple of two-day trips to Las Vegas or Orange County.

Well, it’s maybe not that simple. The solution isn’t a couple of weekends partying in ‘Vegas or two trips to the Magic Kingdom. Instead, DG Keeton Resources invites small business executives to lock themselves in for an intensive four-day SOX training conference to be held over a pair of two-day sessions during August and September.

Yahoo!: Small Public Companies Can Receive Valuable Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Guidance During Intensive Four-Day Conferences

Plans by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to overhaul the organization’s standards for internal control audits don’t go far enough to correct the problems of the PCAOB’s original ground rules - or they go too far in watering down the original Sarbanes-Oxley Act protections for investors by yielding to powerful business groups.

Or they muddy the waters for accountants who are already swimming upstream to interpret and implement Auditing Standard No. 2, which governs audits of internal controls.

Those are some of the comments and opinions that PCAOB officials are currently sifting through after being swamped with comments from CPA firms, business executives, investor advocates and others expressing a wide range of criticisms about their previously announced plan to pare down the amount of testing necessary for SOX 404.

WebCPA: Opinions pour in on SOX 404 proposal