Costs associated with SOX can be quite staggering. A survey conducted by Foley & Lardner LLP claims that the average cost of being a public company with revenues under $1 billion has increased by 130% (qtd. in Green par. 22). Recent studies have shown that nearly 80% of the public marketplace consists of companies that annually earn less than $1 billion (Morgenstern & Nealis par. 40). In all, this means there has been a disproportionate burden put onto the shoulders of smaller public companies. Although smaller companies aren’t payingbillions of dollars in compliance fees, small companies spend an average of 2.5% of their annual revenue on SOX compliance. According to the Wall Street Journal, the nationwide profit margin average for companies under 500 million is only 2.8% (Mogul par. 7). Paul Valloneexplains, “A two million dollar charge to a fifty million dollar company is much more punitive than a five million dollar charge to a twenty billion dollar company”