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John Kerry and Olympia Snowe want another delay for small companies.

Senators John Kerry and Olympia Snowe have sent another letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox asking him to give small companies more time to prepare for complying with the internal-control provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The small-business committees in both the House and Senate have recently met with Cox and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Chairman Mark Olson to go over how the revised management guidance and corresponding new auditing standard for internal control over financial reporting address the concerns of small businesses. Those companies with a market capitalization of less than $75 million must include 404 management reports starting with their 10-Ks filed on or after December 15, 2007 and auditor-attestation reports one year later.

CFO.com: Senators Urge SEC to Delay 404, Again

The US Treasury has welcomed a statement released by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board regarding their votes to address the implementation of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act:

“The SEC and the PCAOB, after carefully considering the effects of Section 404, moved this week to strike the right balance in enhancing financial reporting quality and eliminating unintended costs,” announced Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Robert K. Steel. “These key reforms should ensure that Section 404 is implemented in a risk-based and appropriately-scalable fashion, without sacrificing investor protection or diminishing the value of sound internal controls over financial reporting. Now that the regulators have acted, it is critical that public companies and the auditing profession respond to this call.”

Steel added: “Treasury congratulates the SEC, the PCAOB and their chairmen, Chris Cox and Mark Olson, for their cooperation in working to uphold investors’ confidence in and the competitiveness of America’s capital markets.”

Investorsoffshore: Treasury Welcomes Sarbanes Oxley Reforms