FIFO IV - 2004 Newsletter

SOX 404 - Discuss...

	Jodie Beining (Larson) Sarbox- arghghghg- it seems like you never hear about it unless it is making something more difficult. Our auditors are swamped- they want to use our tax staff, we don't have the staff to spare most of the time- oh wait yes we do because we are sending all of our tax work to some sweat shop in India. Sarbox and 404 haven't effected me much- my client isn't an audit client and they are owned by a French company. The French parent couldn't care less about American rules. Anne Haupt Lindahl Working for a regional firm...it's 100% job security.  I can only imagine how difficult it is for the Big 4 to follow all the regulations, but we are getting a ton of work because of it.  The staff isn't too happy with all the national travel that they suddenly have, but our bottom line sure looks good.  We are doing regulation work for some pretty impressive publicly traded companies.  While it's a pain, it certainly helped us.  I'm just concerned about what's going to happen when they start applying it to Non-Profits.  If anyone is an audit expert in that area, I'd love to talk to you. Julia Hubrich (Ziegler) SOX has not affected my life at all - and probably never will ... Thankfully Jeff Jacobs SOX 404 - it is the result of politicians and government over-reacting without considering the full consequences of the new requirements.  Hopefully they will come back down to earth and find a more practical approach.  I felt pretty safe with my job before 404... Kirk Kohls SOX 404 - I don't know about 100% job security, however, it definitely has helped.   Sara Lahm Bain of public accounting; more work for little to no value. Tim Mattke 100% job security Becky Schaefer Hasn't affected me in consulting, other than that I have had to explain what it is and the implications to a lot of clients. Betsy Schmidt (Mommsen) I’ve been keeping up with my CPE, but I have to admit I don’t know much about SOX 404 beyond the fact that Mike Oxley happens to be my representative from Ohio.  What do you all think, should I vote for this guy? Jason Schultz Yeah.  I haven't looked at Accounting since the CPA exam.  Ignorance is bliss! Jodie Scott (Heitzig) I think in the short term, SOX 404 has given public accountants 100% job security.  Public accounting firms seem all but desperate to get new people in and keep all the good people they can.  Of course, I’ve seen a lot of good people become completely overworked, and left for industry when they realized they could be doing the same kind of work for more money and fewer hours per week.  I think in the long run, the requirements may be too onerous.  I’ve read about so many foreign companies de-listing from the US markets because they don’t want to comply with 404.  I think many US companies also view the additional work required to be unnecessary and not adding any value.  They are spending a lot of their time and paying a lot of money on 404, which could be used more productively. Aaron Sprang How about the bain of publicly-traded companies?  I have been full-time on my company's SOX 404 compliance team for 18 months, so I could write a novel on this.    The amount of my company's resources used on SOX 404 is staggering. Suzanne Wessels I was just given over 400 pages of control self-assessments that I am responsible for at the plant.  Definitely job security for public accountants and a job nightmare for me!