SOX Center

Finance chiefs think that the revised SEC and PCAOB standards won’t change anything because they cancel each other out.

Mismatches between the internal-controls proposals of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will keep compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act overly burdensome and costly, CFOs think.

In letters to the SEC and the PCAOB commenting on the regulators’ proposed revisions to their guidelines, senior finance executives say that the tone and wording of the rules are too different to accomplish their main goal: to get senior top corporate management and audit firms on the same page in assessing and attesting to a company’s internal controls over financial reporting.

CFO.com: “CFOs: 404 Compliance Back at Square One”

The structure of employee health plans often obscures the view of benefit costs and internal controls that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act demands.

Among the many compliance perils created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, one of the least talked about could well be the act’s effect on corporate health-benefit programs.

The lack of discussion is understandable. To be sure, benefit managers commonly operate under the wing of human resources executives, who in turn report up to chief financial officers. Yet finance and HR often seem to live in two different worlds. That’s been especially true since the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley: While finance executives have scrambled to comply with new reporting and certification requirements, benefits caretakers have largely watched from the sidelines.

CFO.com: Sarbanes-Oxley and Health Plans