Please read my disclaimer. I’m not from the US, and my experience is based on accountancy in my own country. No company in my country complies with SOX, because that’s a US law and doesn’t apply to the rest of the world.

While large corporations in this country are audited, they use the large auditors who have in fact been found to have done some pretty dodgy shit that a small auditor or accountant would not have gotten away with, while the regulators turn a blind eye. The large auditors also enable large companies to use tax loopholes that are not available to small businesses, so my point that closing the loopholes would make a big difference stands. And sure, the smaller accountants and auditors do this kind of crap too (corruption exists everwhere) - but the difference is that they’re held to account when they get caught. It is factually the case that those with more money don’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else.

I’m also not an accountant anymore. Did it for ten years and came to absolutely hate it as more of my time was spent on larger businesses. I loved working for the little guys, as overall I found them more reasonable. I never worked on any public companies, but I did work on a few charities (which have many similar rules to public companies in this country), and the corruption amongst the leadership was directly proportional to the size of the charity. There’s one major charity I won’t donate to anymore because I know just how much corruption there is at the top.