[RWR8189]

Sarbanes-Oxley, even more than McCain-Feingold is one of the worst things to come out of the last 5 years.

[WoofDog123]

for small-cap companies, this has been a killer. I have seen numerous profitable co's trying to go private/delist themselves to get out of the expenses this law carries for them.

[FairOpinion]

"Sarbanes-Oxley, even more than McCain-Feingold is one of the worst things to come out of the last 5 years."

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I agree. Congress always responds to everything with more laws and more regulation, regardless that those things make everything much worse.

They should repeal both of these abominations.

[Trajan88]

Good.

In 2002 I was hired to handle world-wide pricing issues for my company. These days I spend 40+ hours per week dealing with SOX 404... it is a xxxxxxx joke with the auditors running, smiling all the way to the bank with their billable hours.

The "statesmen" known as senators Sarbanes and Oxley should be made to sit in a room and deal with this beast they've created until the end of times.

[JerseyHighlander]

I attended a small alumni job fair hosted by my alum's business school right before SOX became law. A SOX compliance auditing firm offered every accounting major a job on the spot pretty much if the person was even minimumly qualified. 100+ positions to fill as fast a possible.

I knew then this law was going to get out of hand.

SOX compliance has become one of the few job creation engines for well paying jobs in the finance field in NJ in the last 3 years. The SOX laws just suck companies dry do to compliance costs, and provide no added value to the companies. Complete nonsense.

[thoughtomator]

I just finished a contract where part of the work was for SOX compliance. When I read the law it seemed created to be impossible to fully comply with - where the law could be understood at all!

[Drango]

red tape = SOX

[Wolfie]

Wanna get rid of SOX? Make it apply to Congress.

[BlessedBeGod]

Please, please, please, please, please get rid of it! I'm sick of doing SOX audit stuff at work. I have better things to do with my time. Unfortunately, I work for a larger company so this is unlikely to help. :-(

[Hardastarboard]

The good news is that SOX, as constituted now, will eventually apply to EVERY organization that transacts business, including state and local governments (yes, I know they're not subject to it, but they will eventually have to do it anyway - a lot ofthem have told me they're anticipating it). At the point it starts causing them pain and wasting money they don't have (on something OTHER than social programs), you'll see it change dramatically.

[guestfox01]

Congressmen Move to Water Down Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Sarbanes-Oxley needs to go, it was a bad idea from the beginning. Our congress critters are out of touch with reality...unlike them, it is the U.S. citizen who typically suffers from the consequences of bad legislation. Of course, all congress critters care about is their political career, getting re-elected and giving themselves raises/perks.

[theBuckwheat]

I am working on starting a business and have met with my CPA firm about capital and structure strategies. It is clear that, at the very least, SOX has moved the cost of being publicly listed quite a bit higher in terms of cost.

The simple implication of this is that a company has to be far larger today to afford to do this. An essential part of capital strategy is how early investors can get compensated for the risk they took. For a company that starts from zero but has well-founded expectations of solid growth, that compensation used to take place at the firm's Initial Public Offering.

SOX pretty much imposes a lot of burdens on companies that are starting, but who eventually hope to have an IPO. At the very least, the financial audits must be up to spec all along the way or there is great cost in trying to bring the books up to SOX compliance.

All this has the effect of driving "proto-public" companies (companies working towards their IPO) away from going public and into private equity. Private firms do not have the disclosure requirements that public firms do, nor do they offer their shareholders the same "liquidity", or ability to buy and sell shares. Of course, this also denies the public the opportunity to share in the company's growth and wealth creation.

Believe it or not the United States is the world's largest tax-haven, for non-US persons. That is because the US doesn't impose income or capital gains taxes on non-US investors who own shares in US-listed stocks.

SOX is cutting off the ability of small private firms to be listed on US exchanges. Fewer small firms being listed eventually means fewer medium sized firms and fewer larger firms. The US Dollar in part is supported by the tremendous amount of money that flows into our capital markets, money that will go where the stocks go to be listed. None of this benefits the US in the long run.

At the very least Congress needs to examine the costs of SOX and raise the minimum size of business that SOX applies to, that is, after considering what little real benefit comes from SOX as it now exists.