A bipartisan group of lawmakers has reintroduced legislation to allow immediate expensing of research and development costs, all the way back to 2022 when the tax break expired.

The bill, known as the American Innovation and R&D Competitiveness Act, would eliminate the five-year amortization requirement for research and experimental expenditures, allowing continued expensing of them in the taxable years in which the expenditures are incurred. 

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 ended immediate expensing of R&D costs and required the costs to be amortized over five years, starting in 2022. Congress has made efforts in the past to repeal or delay the requirement, and it will have a chance again as Republicans put together a reconciliation bill to extend the expiring provisions of the TCJA while adding new tax breaks. Last year, Congress came close to extending the tax break through 2025 after the House passed the bipartisan Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, but the bill stalled in the Senate. 

Estes and Larson introduced previous versions of their bill (when it was known as the American Innovation and R&D Competitiveness Act) in 2019 and 2023. 

“Research and development play an integral role in creating good-paying jobs across the country, especially as we work to strengthen our economic competitiveness,” Larson said in a statement Monday. “The 2017 tax law’s elimination of immediate R&D expensing has made it more difficult for businesses to invest in developing the technologies of the future, including small business owners and engineers in my district.”

The bill has received support from industry groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.

“Research and development in the United States does more than just advance innovation, it provides good-paying jobs for Americans across the country and strengthens our nation,” Estes stated. “There is bipartisan support for immediate expensing of R&D costs because it’s good for the workforce and the economy, brings new products and services to the marketplace, and ensures that our country remains the leader in innovation around the world. For the past several years, U.S. job creators and innovators have been unable to immediately expense R&D costs in the year they occur, and as a result we’ve seen domestic research and development slow while other countries incentivize and benefit from expanded R&D. A significant number of workers, community leaders, businesses and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that we must address R&D expensing this year.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission dramatically pulled back on accounting and auditing enforcement last year after two years in a row of increases under former SEC chair Gary Gensler, according to a new report.

The report, released Wednesday by Cornerstone Research, found that enforcement activity plummeted during Gensler’s final year leading the SEC before he stepped down on President Trump’s Inauguration Day. The report found that the SEC initiated 45 accounting and auditing enforcement actions in fiscal year 2024, a 46% decrease from FY 2023 and the lowest number since 2021. Approximately half of all the actions (22) were initiated in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, and more than one-third were initiated in September, the last month of the SEC fiscal year. On the other hand, monetary penalties reached their highest levels since 2021.

The report echoes the findings of a report released last week by the Brattle Group that found a dropoff in enforcement activity against auditors by both the SEC and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in the second half of last year. The Supreme Court ruled in June against the SEC in the case of SEC v. Jarkesy, giving defendants the right to a jury trial rather than a hearing before the SEC’s in-house administrative law judges. The Cornerstone report noted that the SEC dismissed six administrative proceedings after the Jarkesy decision.

“In addition to a decrease in enforcement activity, the SEC dismissed six administrative proceedings in FY 2024 after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in SEC v. Jarkesy on June 27, 2024,” said Jean-Philippe Poissant, a report coauthor and cohead of Cornerstone Research’s accounting practice, in a statement Wednesday. “In contrast, the SEC imposed more than $770 million in monetary penalties in FY 2024, a 32% increase from FY 2023 and the highest total since 2021.”

The report also found that the number of actions initiated against U.S. respondents declined 56% in FY 2024, while those initiated against non-U.S. respondents increased 18%. The number of actions referring to an announced restatement and/or material weakness in internal control in FY 2024 was only nine, a whopping 78% decline from the 41 such actions in the prior two fiscal years.

The number of actions alleging violations of internal accounting controls decreased to its lowest level since FY 2021. Nonmonetary sanctions were imposed against 67% of the 33 individual respondents who settled their cases with the SEC in FY 2024. The SEC acknowledged that 25% (15 firms and two individuals) of the 67 respondents who settled with the commission in FY 2024 offered cooperation, undertook remedial efforts, and/or self-reported to the SEC, slightly down from 26% in FY 2023.

The report also compares the Gensler period (FY 2021–FY 2024) to a comparable period under Jay Clayton (FY 2017–FY 2020), who chaired the SEC during the first Trump administration. During the Gensler period, the SEC initiated an average of 60 enforcement actions per year, compared to 74 during the Clayton period. Settled actions declined under Gensler, dropping nearly 20% to an average of 66 settled actions per year, compared to 80 under Clayton. Trump has nominated Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner, to be the next chair, succeeding Gensler. In the meantime, the SEC is now being led by acting commissioner Mark Uyeda.

“Looking back to the last eight years, our analysis shows that enforcement actions with accounting and auditing allegations were less of a priority than other emerging allegations under Chair Gensler,” said Simona Mola, a report coauthor and principal at Cornerstone Research, in a statement. “In the four fiscal years of the Gensler period, the SEC accounting and auditing enforcement activity overall declined relative to the Clayton period in terms of total number of actions initiated or settled. The average total settlement amount per year during the Gensler period also declined to $647 million, down from $796 million imposed during the Clayton period.”

There were 75 total respondents in accounting and auditing enforcement actions initiated in FY 2024, a major decline from 111 respondents in FY 2023 and below the four-year averages under both Clayton (122) and Gensler (90).

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board sanctioned engagement partner Jaslyn Sellers for multiple audit failures in consecutive audits and for violating partner rotational limits.

Sellers was an audit director at BF Borgers, which was shut down for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission in May 2024. The PCAOB found that she failed, in consecutive audits of issuer NetSol Technologies Inc. for fiscal years 2021 and 2022, to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence in areas that she identified as significant risks, including revenue recognition and accounting estimates. 

In addition, the Board found that Sellers violated auditor independence requirements by serving as the NTI engagement partner for a sixth consecutive year.

“Engagement partners are the first line of defense for investors and the public relying on audited financial statements,” PCAOB Chair Erica Williams said in a statement. “Partners who shirk their obligations increase risk in the marketplace and will be held accountable.”

Sellers also authorized the issuance of audit reports for each of the NTI audits, which identified critical audit matters. Those CAMs included descriptions of audit procedures intended to address each CAM, but some of those procedures were not actually performed. 

“The engagement partner here abrogated her duties to appropriately audit the significant risk areas she identified, failed to abide by partner rotation requirements, and gave investors the impression certain CAMs were addressed when they were not,” Robert Rice, director of the PCAOB’s Division of Enforcement and Investigations, said in a statement. “Conduct like this puts investors at risk and will not be tolerated.”

Without admitting or denying the findings, Sellers consented to the PCAOB’s order, which:

• Censures Sellers;
• Bars her from associating with a PCAOB-registered firm, with a right to reapply after two years; and,
• Imposes a $15,000 civil money penalty on her. Based on her conduct, the Board would have imposed a $75,000 penalty if it had not taken her financial resources into consideration.

PCAOB sanctions PwC Singapore

Today the PCAOB also sanctioned PwC Singapore for violating PCAOB rules and quality control standards.

Over nearly two years, personnel in PwC Singapore’s Independence Office understated the rates at which firm personnel failed to properly or timely report their financial interests and relationships. The personnel developed and implemented methods, including misclassifying certain failures — known as Personal Independence Compliance Testing exceptions — as self-reported. As a result, on two separate occasions, the firm provided understated PICT exception rates to the PCAOB as part of its remediation of prior inspection findings.

The PCAOB found that the firm leadership’s focus on achieving a targeted PICT exception rate, in combination with a lack of appropriate PICT-related policies and procedures and controls, enabled the misconduct. The Board also found that the firm failed to give appropriate consideration to the assignment of quality control responsibilities when appointing its Partner Responsible for Independence. 

“It is imperative that firms maintain an appropriate ethical culture in all aspects of their system of quality control,” Rice said in a statement. “Firms must properly monitor and report on compliance with their independence-related policies and procedures to ensure the Board and investors have accurate information.”

Without admitting or denying the findings, PwC Singapore consented to the PCAOB’s order, which censured the firm, imposed a $1.5 million civil money penalty, and imposed remedial measures related to the firm’s independence processes.