The PCAOB is a corporation constructed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to inspect and overlook all the audits of the companies. Before SOX was mandated, companies would self maintain their own financial reports, making it easy for them to hide and maneuver numbers around to make it look good on paper. This is one of the most complicated and long laws out there, for ex-president George W. Bush this law is, 'the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.'' (New York Times, Corporate Conduct: The President Signs Bill Aimed at Fraud in Corporations, Elisabeth Bumiller, July 31, 2002) the Sarbanes-Oxley act is broken down in to 11 parts, or titles each title containing several acts. .
Title I- Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
Title II- Auditor Independence.
Title III- Corporate Responsibility.
Title IV- Enhanced Financial Disclosures.
Tile V- Analyst Conflicts of Interest.
Tile VI- Commission Resources and Authority.
Tile VII- Studies and Reports.
Title VIII- Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability.
Tile IX- White Collar Crime Penalty Enhancements.
Title X- Corporate Tax Returns.
Tile XI- Corporate Fraud and Accountability.
Although the nature of this act was to do well, for some reason the architects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ignored or unforeseen the estimated cost of the process for complying with the acts. "The direct costs were millions of dollars higher than original estimates, while the non-cash expenses (opportunity costs, lost investment opportunities and excessive staff burdens) were not considered." (The Impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Yousef Jahmani, William A. Dowling, Savannah State University, USA). For this reason, much business had trouble going through the checklist of this act. It was too costly and to get the job done, the act required too many man-hours plus the hours already that had to be put in on the regular workday.