SOX and Small Business

As the SEC continues to struggle with applying Sarbanes Oxley to small business, it could take a lesson from privately held firms that are deciding to comply with some parts of SOX and not others.  See Jaclyne Badal and Phred Dvork, Sarbanes-Oxley Gains Adherents, WSJ today.  The privately held firms uniformly reject Section 404's audit of internal controls requriement, for example, but do attempt to put some internal controls in place that are appropriate to their business.  The SEC could tailor its rules for small publicly traded companies to follow the wisdom of the privately held companies.