Sox 404(b), the Stinking Onion

Tom Selling (TS) has a 5 October 2009 post at his Accounting Onion excoriating the SEC for its not telling Congress that applying ICFR to "non-accelerated filers", i.e., SEC registrants with under $75 million in market cap is likely a waste of money. TS notes "Even under that very conservative assumption, 6,000 non-accelerated filers comprise (at the very most) only 3.2% of aggregate equity values". I have said the PCAOB wastes time inspecting 1790 of its 1800 CPA firms for years, even assuming the PCAOB's people know what they are doing, which I doubt. TS also notes, "The corporate corruption scandals that got politicians moving on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 were the result of fraud by CEOs and CFOs. ICFR can have little to no impact of the actions of the top executives, because they always possess the power to override internal controls, or sometimes to orchestrate schemes that circumvent those controls", original italics, my emphasis, link: http://accountingonion.typepad.com/theaccountingonion/2009/10/s-ox-404b-for-non-accelerated-filers-a-politicial-crime-waiting-to-happen.html.

Bravo TS! See also my 29 August 2009 post on fraudbusters: http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2009/08/fraudbusters.html.