The Securities and Exchange Commission voted Friday to approve the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's 2023 budget and the related annual accounting support fee just ahead of the holiday weekend.
The PCAOB budget will total $349.5 million in 2023. Meanwhile, the accounting support fee totals $329.4 million, with $300.3 million being assessed on public company issuers and $29.1 million on SEC registered broker-dealers.
"The PCAOB plays a critical role to ensure that investors can trust a company's financial disclosures," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a statement. "I'm glad to support this budget, providing the PCAOB the resources to promote its mission under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, benefiting investors and issuers alike."
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act gives the SEC oversight responsibility of the PCAOB, including reviewing and approving the PCAOB's budget and accounting support fee on an annual basis. The PCAOB plans to use the budget to roll out new standards and beef up its inspections of auditing firms.
"This budget provides for an increase in staff in our Office of the Chief Auditor to assist in the execution of our ambitious standard-setting agenda," said PCAOB chair Erica Williams during a November meeting to vote on the budget. "As we advance our mission, it is imperative that we evaluate the standards that were adopted by the board in 2003 on an interim basis to determine if changes are necessary to keep up with developments in the auditing profession and the capital markets. Stakeholder feedback is also a critical component of standard setting. Therefore, this budget includes funding necessary to engage with our advisory groups on a regular basis throughout the year. As it pertains to inspections, the budget provides resources that will allow us to enhance our work to assess whether accounting firms are complying with applicable laws, rules, and standards. As part of our inspection process, and consistent with our strategic plan, these resources will also assist us as we consider ways to provide greater transparency in our inspection reports, improve the timeliness of issuing such reports, identify opportunities to share useful guidance with the auditing profession, and increase our focus on firms' remediation efforts."
