The roles of internal audit in complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

This paper discusses the professional standards and research findings pertaining to the roles of internal audit in the Sarbanes–Oxley era, particularly under the new Auditing Standard No. 5 Guidelines for the implementation of the Act's Section 404. The paper explains how internal audit resources have been used and should be used to assist corporate management, audit committees, and external auditors in their corporate governance duties. Hence, the analyses in this paper are useful for internal auditors, external auditors, corporate management, and audit committee members. The paper obtains its information from professional auditing standards as well as published research studies pertaining to the roles of internal audit in the Sarbanes–Oxley era.