Effects of Sarbanes-Oxley Act on Accountants Profession

Table of contents: 1. Introduction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -2- 2. The first effect: accountants responsibility increase * Special sections of SOX that increase accountants responsibility by imposing criminal liability------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -3- * Accountants independence resulting in a higher responsibility of accountants------- -4- * Fraud decrease as a consequence of increased transparency of financial reporting -- -5- 3. The second effect of Sarbanes-Oxley Act: the education sphere of accounting * New informational sources ------------------------------------------------------------------- -7- * SOX coverage at Business/Economics colleges of the USA----------------------------- -8- * How business schools need to prepare future accountants ------------------------------- -9- 4. Conclusion----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11- 5. Notes--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -12-

Introduction The profession of an accountant plays an important role in the world business. High-quality performance by professional accountants benefits the economy and society by contributing to the efficient allocation and management of resources in both the private and public sectors and to the operation of financial and capital markets. [1]Transparency of financial reporting is the main criteria of the accountants’ performance evaluation, because people make crucial decisions regarding the investments based on financial reporting. Every investor wishes that he should be able to get more, better and transparent information about the financial data of the company.. The best definition of transparent is “very clear”, “easily understood”, and “candid” and “frank”.[2] The scandals in the