Skip to Content
The Complete CPA Reference
book

The Complete CPA Reference

by Nick A. Dauber, Jae K. Shim, Joel G. Siegel
May 2012
Intermediate to advanced
725 pages
18h 38m
English
Wiley
Content preview from The Complete CPA Reference

CHAPTER 13

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was enacted, in part, in response to the accounting scandals of several publicly traded companies. SOX resulted in changes to corporate governance, increased corporate reporting (disclosure), and partial regulation of the accounting profession. This chapter focuses on the impact that SOX has on independent auditors of publicly traded entities.

In general, what are the major provisions of SOX that impact auditors of publicly traded entities?

Major provisions in SOX that impact auditors of publicly traded entities include:

  • Stricter rules regarding independence of the auditor
  • Partner rotation
  • Creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
  • A requirement to attest to, and report on, the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting (discussed in Chapter 12)

Auditor Independence

What employment situations impair auditor independence?

Under SOX, an auditor will lose independence if an employee of the company being audited was part of the audit engagement team at any time during the cooling-off period. In order for the loss of independence to occur, the employee of the auditee must have had a financial accounting oversight role. Accordingly, prohibited employee positions include the chief executive officer, the chief financial officer, the controller, and the chief accounting officer, as well as any other position in which the individual can impact the preparation or contents of the entity's ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Leading An Accounting Firm

Leading An Accounting Firm

Troy Waugh

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781118237618Purchase book