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(Bloomberg) — The U.S. House of Representatives moved toward giving small companies an additional year to adhere to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s accounting rules, which are being revised by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

House lawmakers voted 267 to 154 to delay a deadline for companies with less than $75 million in publicly available shares to start complying with the law’s audit rules. The measure was attached to a $21.4 billion spending measure that funds the White House, the SEC and other agencies.

U.S. Representative Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, proposed the amendment out of concern the audit rules will impose disproportionate expenses on small companies. The vote indicates lawmakers don’t think the changes being implemented by the SEC go far enough in reducing compliance burdens.

bloomberg.com: House Votes to Give Small Companies More Time on Sarbanes-Oxley

Jack Ciesielski submits: CFO.com reports that Senators John Kerry (Massachusetts) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) have sent another letter to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox requesting further delay in the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s Section 404 for small companies.

It’s deja vu all over again: they sent a letter to him last February on the same subject.

Here’s a link to the letter. The senators didn’t ask for a specific extension - but wanted an answer from Chairman Cox in 30 days. Last time, the specifically asked the SEC to give small firms until the end of 2008 to have management report on their internal controls, and another year afterwards for the auditors to report on the same.

Yahoo.com: The Protected Class: Senators’ Request For Sarbox Delay - Part II

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

Challenging optimism about the efficiency of new auditing standards, the House Small Business Committee’s chairwoman called on federal regulators to give thousands of small public companies even more time to comply with a controversial section of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-NY, said on Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board must implement the internal-controls section of the law in a way that “does not hamper America’s competitiveness.” She said that “postponing the compliance deadlines for at least an additional year would allow us to make this determination.”

The 2002 law requires company management to evaluate internal controls over financial reporting, subject to review by outside auditors. The SEC has delayed applying the rules to more than 6,000 small companies at least four times, most recently citing a need to make the rules more efficient. Under current policy, small public companies will begin submitting management reports in 2008, and the auditor reports in 2009.

Nasdaq: House Lawmaker Calls On SEC To Delay Internal-Controls Rules

Several of the North Bay’s publicly traded companies will soon have to comply for the first time with the stringent accounting requirements of the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is still revising those requirements, and the companies face the dilemma of whether to prepare now using the current requirements or wait for the revisions, which are expected to ease the act’s burden on small companies.

Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002 in response to accounting scandals at Enron Corp. and other companies, but since then smaller firms have been arguing that the act is too costly for companies without large accounting staffs.

North Bay Business Journal: Sarbanes-Oxley deadline approaches