Accounting Support Fees
Section 109 of the Act provides that funds to cover the Board's annual budget (less registration and annual fees paid by public accounting firms) are to be collected from "issuers," as defined in the Act. The amount due from such companies is referred to in the Act as the Board's "accounting support fee."
Accounting support fees fund the Board's operations. Once each year, the Board will compute the fees based on the Board's budget for that year, as approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In establishing rules on the allocation of the accounting support fee, the Board was guided by two overarching principles: that, generally, the fee must be allocated in a manner that reflects the proportionate sizes of issuers, and that, within that framework, the fee must be allocated in an equitable manner. These two principles are related in that, at least as a general matter, size of issuer may serve as an indication of the complexity of an audit, which could be an equitable measure on which to base allocation of the fee.
Accounting support fees are based on the average monthly U.S. equity market capitalization of publicly traded companies, investment companies and other equity issuers. The fees will be paid by publicly traded companies with average monthly U.S. equity market capitalization of more than $25 million each and by investment companies with average monthly net asset value or U.S. equity market capitalization of more than $250 million each.
Failure to pay constitutes a violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Board refers such failures to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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