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U.S. Chamber of Commerce Phoned in Its Opposition to the PCAOB’s Revised Auditor Report Proposals

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

If there's one thing that you can count on when regulators propose rules that will shake things up a bit, it's a whole-hearted opposition from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness's comment letter for the Concept Release was 20 pages long and is summed up quite well by this passage:

CCMC notes that the Concept Release gives short shrift to activities by other audit standard-setters related to auditor reporting and fails to provide any comparison of relevant portions of PCAOB auditor reporting standards with those of the [AICPA's Auditing Standards Board] and [International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board] as part of considering improvements to PCAOB auditing standards. The CCMC encourages the PCAOB to reconsider the "go it alone" approach to audit standard setting.

In other words, "Government Regulator  = Bad; Government Regulator + Heavy-handed Industry Trade Organizations = Good!" 

But yesterday, all we could find is this pathetic excuse for a statement from a special-interest-group-that-opposes-any-and-all-regulation

"This is a fundamental change that can harm both businesses and investors alike, and may drive up liability for management and auditors," said Tom Quaadman, vice president of the Chamber's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness.

Pretty weak sauce, guys. What is that, the "PCAOB statement" template you used there? Hope you bring your A-game when you submit your comment letter.

Audit Reports Add Beef [WSJ]
CCMC Comment Letter [PCAOB]

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Audit Room Etiquette: Three Faux Pas That Make Your Co-workers Hate You

Since we marked the countdown to the first SEC deadline of busy season yesterday, let’s tackle an important issue.

Sitting in close proximity of the same people day after day, night after night tends to wear on a person (and if you happen to be sleeping with them, it’s worse).

You start noticing the most mundane, yet painfully annoying habits of your fellow auditors and they can drive you up the boringly-beige wall. Pretty soon, assault and battery seems like your only course of action. We ask that you refrain from beat downs (it’s just not considered good professional to batter your co-workers these days), but it is, of course, your God-given right to gripe about it and share your gripes behind the offending co-workers’ back.

But before you get too high and mighty, are you absolutely sure you’re not one of the annoying ones? We consulted another former audit room survivor, DWB, and no one is immune. In order to make you more aware of your personal, er, shortcomings, we’ve assembled this handly list of the most common bad habits that occur in the audit room:

• Eating – You either eat food that makes the entire room reek or you happen to simultaneously masticate and opine on recent accounting developments. Trying to burp quietly is an act in futility and don’t react to your food like it’s sexually stimulating (even if it is). All of these make you terrible to be around.


• Personal phone calls – You know that guy that takes three phone calls from his girlfriend every single day at the exact same time? Or you happen to call your mother every day to shoot the breeze for 45 minutes. Oh, that’s you? Well, not only are you shamefully whipped and/or dependent you’re annoying the hell out of everyone else within earshot.

• Humming, whistling and/or singing – For the love of God, why on Earth is necessary to audibly hum a tune that you’re making up in your head? Furthermore, why would you put words to it? You’re an auditor, not Andrew Lloyd Webber. (And no, it’s not OK if the tune is actually one of Mr Lloyd Webber’s compositions – actually that might be worse.)

Now for those of you that simply think that a set of headphones will solve all these problems, we regret to inform you you’re gravely mistaken. Once these habits have saturated a person’s psyche, any movement, otherwise normal, will amplify the inner wrath to deistic proportions.

The above list is by no means all-inclusive and we’ll admit that our tolerance for bad human behavior is lower than most but the issue is important enough to warrant discussion and possible solutions.

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