Key Takeaways

  • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement Monday evening in response to President Donald Trump's renewed call to eliminate quarterly reporting requirements for public companies, saying it would prioritize the matter.
  • "At President Trump's request, Chairman [Paul] Atkins and the SEC are prioritizing this proposal to further reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens on businesses," an SEC spokesperson said in a statement sent to CFO Dive on Monday evening. The spokesperson declined in an interview Tuesday to elaborate on the specific steps the SEC would need to take to modify quarterly reporting requirements.
  • The statement was in response to Trump's social media post Monday morning. In the post, Trump said, "Subject to SEC approval, companies and businesses should no longer be forced to 'report' on a quarterly basis (quarterly reports!), but rather on a 'six-month' cycle." He said this would save money and allow management to "focus on running their companies well."

Deep Dive

The SEC has adjusted reporting frequency before: the agency began requiring semi-annual reports in 1955 and switched to mandating quarterly reports for public companies in 1970.

The latest push to reduce reporting frequency for public companies aligns with the Trump administration's deregulatory stance. Observers expect Atkins, as the new chairman of the regulatory agency, to bring more targeted enforcement and softer, more collaborative rulemaking. Changes so far include: the SEC announced in March it would no longer defend in court its rule requiring companies to disclose certain climate-related risks, and the fate of that climate risk disclosure rule is currently mired in litigation, as reported by ESG Dive, a sister publication of CFO Dive.

Although the SEC's rulemaking process typically takes months or years, Robert J. Pawlewicz, an assistant professor of accounting at the University of Richmond in Virginia, previously told CFO Dive that under an Atkins-led SEC, the timeline for a proposal to shift from quarterly to semi-annual reporting could accelerate. In an email Monday, he said, "My impression is that 'normal process' may be set aside by this administration."

Looking back at Trump's first term, on August 17, 2018, he made a similar argument via social media. He claimed that top business leaders had told him that reducing reporting would benefit U.S. business and employment, and said he had asked the SEC to study the issue.

About four months later, on December 18, 2018, the SEC issued a formal request for comment, seeking input on "how to reduce the administrative and other burdens on reporting companies with respect to quarterly reports while maintaining the investor protection attributes of periodic reporting." The document was signed by Eduardo Aleman, then deputy secretary of the SEC.

The document said the SEC was seeking comment on whether rules should provide "flexibility" in the frequency of periodic reporting to free corporate executives from focusing on short-term performance (so-called "short-termism") while maintaining "appropriate investor protections."

In 2021, then-SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, appointed by former President Biden, "quietly shelved" the Trump-era quarterly reporting rulemaking, Thomson Reuters reported at the time, citing a regulatory agenda published on June 11, 2021. Currently, the quarterly reporting issue does not appear to be included in the SEC's official spring 2025 agenda.

The SEC spokesperson declined Tuesday to comment on the status of the regulator's previous review of the matter.