The Securities and Exchange Commission voted to approve the 2021 budget and annual accounting support fee of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
For 2021, the PCAOB’s budget will total $287.3 million, up 0.9 percent from the 2020 budget of $284.7 million. The relatively small increase anticipates lower spending on things like travel spending due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The majority of the budget, roughly $218.5 million, is slated for personnel costs.
The accounting support fee, which roughly approximates the board’s budget, is assessed on the entities who are audited by the firms the board oversees. For 2021, it will be $263.9 million, down 2.3 percent from 2020. Of that, $236.2 million be assessed on public companies, and $27.7 million on registered broker-dealers.
The support fee does not quite match up to the actual budget due to certain timing differences in fee collection and board spending, adjustments to the board’s working capital reserve, and potential unspent funds from the prior year being carried forward.
The PCAOB adopted its proposed 2021 budget, and its strategic plan for 2020-2024, in November (see
The SEC oversees the PCAOB per the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which created the board.
