They must now personally sign off on financial reports, comply with Sarbanes-Oxley's requirements for internal monitoring, work with the board's audit committee and the company's internal auditors.

ECONOMIST: Greater responsibility, greater power | The

The other nice thing about farming out your tax work: Professionals know what raises audit flags at the Internal Revenue Service.

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But all the firms quickly saw that they could now charge a lot more for the audit itself given the new requirement for a separate opinion on internal controls over financial reporting and the amount of work some sloppy companies had to do to document, test, and confirm internal controls.

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