What you’ll see from the SEC in 2026

What’s the SEC got on tap for 2026? Some clues were dropped last week at the AICPA Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments, where SEC Chair Paul Atkins and Chief Accountant Kurt Hohl discussed their priorities for the year ahead. Perhaps not surprisingly, Atkins said that deregulation and crypto will be top of mind, but he and Hohl also stressed the importance of auditor independence.

Loosening regs to spur IPOs: Atkins brought up the decline in IPOs over the past few decades. (Between the 1990s and today, the number of US public companies dropped by 50%, from around 8,000 to about 4,000.) The reasons companies have been more reluctant to go public, he posited, include fear of litigation, “the weight and cost of disclosures,” and shareholder activism.

The SEC has already taken some measures that, in Atkins’s view, would make it less burdensome for companies to go public. In November, for instance, the agency announced it wouldn’t “make rulings on common proxy objections,” per Reuters, which could raise the bar for activist shareholders resolutions on hot-button topics. Atkins stated that “reforms” affecting shareholder activism are forthcoming, but noted that it will take “all of next year” to complete the proposals related to IPOs “and then work on finalizing them.”

Clearer guidance for crypto: Atkins reiterated his desire to have the SEC work on formalizing regulations for cryptocurrency. The agency wants to have “clear rules of the road,” he said. “No more, in that space, regulation through enforcement, and which I think was, frankly, a black eye on the SEC processes here in the past.” Holt mentioned that since crypto doesn’t “fit neatly into existing accounting standards,” his office would work with FASB, and particularly with its reconstituted Emerging Issues Task Force, to provide guidance around digital assets.

Reinforcing auditor independence: Earlier this year, the existence of the PCAOB seemed to be in jeopardy. Atkins didn’t directly address the future of the board, but did say, “I think especially the PCAOB has a real need to not impose unclear standards, or make things needlessly complicated, as I think a couple of the proposals in the past would have done.”

Atkins did stress the need for auditor independence and maintaining audit quality, especially in light of the rise of private equity investment into accounting firms. Hohl said that private equity can help firms invest in new technology, but that it also comes with risks. “We’re going to insist on the rigorous independence and objectivity that the investors expect of auditors and accountants,” he said, adding that his office would review independence rules to see if any updates needed to be made, given the changing business environment and the rise of AI.

Big priorities, smaller staff: Hohl also stated he’d like to see more alignment between US and international accounting standards. “One of the things that I’m really focused on is to try to get as much cooperation and convergence as we can on standards, because it reduces investor confusion,” he said, stating that the IASB could work more closely with FASB on streamlining the standard-setting process and that the PCAOB could work on greater alignment with IAASB standards.

Hohl mentioned that he’ll be pursuing these priorities with less staff than usual. His office was at 40% below normal headcount when he became chief accountant this July, he said, and he still lacks two of the usual four deputy accountants. The SEC’s professional accounting fellow program, though, will soon be staffed at its typical level of about fourteen people, he said.