No more Sarb-Ox for small business?

This should be welcome news.

From the link:

Small businesses would be granted a permanent reprieve from complying with part of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform laws, under a draft U.S. House of Representatives bill discussed on Tuesday.

Small companies have not had to comply fully with the rules since the Sarbanes-Oxley law was approved in 2002 in response to the Enron and WorldCom corporate scandals.

Companies with a market capitalization below $75 million have argued that they faced disproportionately higher costs compared with larger companies and have convinced regulators to delay compliance at least five times.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is now requiring small companies to report on the effectiveness of their internal controls as of June 15, 2010.

But Republicans, hoping to thwart this SEC requirement, introduced an amendment on Tuesday to a House Financial Services Committee draft bill to do just that.