Republicans Press Ahead With PCAOB Kill

confirmations

A key House committee voted Wednesday night to abolish the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, moving one early but important step forward in Republicans’ goal of ending the agency. The House Financial Services Committee voted along party lines, Republicans in favor and Democrats against, to cease funding the PCAOB and transfer all its duties and…

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Republicans Propose Abolishing PCAOB

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Republicans in Congress unveiled legislation on Friday to abolish the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and fold the PCAOB’s audit industry oversight duties into the Securities and Exchange Commission.  The House Financial Services Committee released the proposed text Friday evening, presumably hoping that nobody would notice. The bill would take the PCAOB’s duties — approving…

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PCAOB Points to Audit Progress

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The head of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board launched a charm offensive this week, praising audit firms for falling rates of deficient audits and stressing that the PCAOB plays an important role in investor protection. I’m sure Republicans’ anti-PCAOB mood these days was just a coincidence. Erica Williams, chair of the PCAOB, spoke Wednesday…

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Guidance on Root Cause Analysis

root cause analysis

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has published fresh guidance on how to perform a root cause analysis, for anyone out there who wants to understand the root of your problems.  The guidance, published Tuesday, is geared toward audit firms rather than corporate businesses, so not all the advice in its nine pages will be…

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PCAOB Alert on Company-Produced Evidence

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The PCAOB has published fresh advice for audit firms about how to evaluate data and reports provided by their client companies. Internal audit teams might want to take note, since such PCAOB “advice” has a habit of soon becoming new demands placed upon you by your auditor. The report, blandly titled “Inspection Observations Related to…

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PCAOB Cheating Crackdown Continues

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U.S. accounting regulators today fined KPMG’s Dutch affiliate $25 million for rampant employee cheating on the firm’s training exams, and then topped that eye-popping enforcement action with two more smaller fines against Deloitte’s Indonesia and Philippines affiliates for similar offenses.  The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board dropped this news bomb on Wednesday morning, and it’s…

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NOCLAR Audit Proposal Keeps Going

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The Public Company Accounting Oversight board is seeking more input on its controversial proposal for audit firms to look more aggressively for compliance violations at client companies, amid continuing fierce debate over the benefits and potential costs of the idea.  The PCAOB announced Monday that it will hold a roundtable on March 6 to solicit…

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PCAOB Talks 2024 Audit Issues

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The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board plans to inspect more corporate audits in 2024, casting an especially watchful eye at audits of financial and IT companies, as well as businesses that engaged in mergers and acquisitions in 2023. So says an alert the PCAOB published earlier this week, previewing the agency’s priorities for 2024 audit…

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Another Take on Auditors and Compliance Violations

audit

Occasionally strange things happen. So when an auditor friend of mine called me to say he believes this proposal for auditors to look for compliance violations is actually easier than most people suspect, I started taking notes — because an auditor defending this idea is a rare thing indeed. The proposal, from the Public Company…

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PCAOB Compliance Proposal Draws Heat

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Comment letters have begun to arrive for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s proposal to have auditors look for compliance and legal violations at their client companies. So far the idea has plenty of critics — although plenty of that criticism is stuff compliance officers will like to hear. The PCAOB’s proposal is to require…

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