White House’s Budget Calls for Elimination of Audit Watchdog

The U.S. audit regulator would be eliminated and its duties handed to the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Trump administration’s budget proposal for fiscal 2021, released Monday.

The White House would transfer the authority of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to the SEC by 2022 in order eliminate duplication between the two regulators and “reduce regulatory ambiguity,” it said.

• Congress created the PCAOB as part of the landmark 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, with a goal of restoring trust in financial reporting after accounting scandals led to the collapses of Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. Audit ...