Hi Tina. Thanks so much for starting our discussion this week! You brought up a great point about independence. In order for an audit opinion to be reliable, it must be issued by an independent accounting firm. The increased independence requirement of SOX took away huge amounts of revenue from the public accounting firms. However, I think most of them have probably been able to make up most of those lost revenues through the additional work they do related to SOX compliance. Prior to SOX, many public accounting firms were earning more money from their audit clients doing consulting work than they were earning for the audit fees (Arthur Andersen and Enron are a great example of this!). When the auditors are doing consulting work, it can create somewhat of a gray line between the auditors and management. It also makes it extremely difficult (if not impossible) for the auditor to remain objective. Subsequent to SOX, the audit firms had to stop performing these consulting services for their audit clients (or relinquish their duties as the auditor for that company). They can do one or the other, but not both. Class, do you think it's possible for an auditor to be completely independent from their client? Why or why not?