The purpose of the SEC report compiled by SEC staff is to consider the application of the International Financial Reporting System and its standards in the United States. Currently the United States utilizes the U.S. GAAP accounting standards. The difference between U.S. GAAP and IFRS accounting standards the U.S. GAAP standards are rules based, while the IFRS standards are principles-based. This means that U.S. GAAP standards provide clarity in application and IFRS standards which are clearly defined allow users the opportunity to interpret the principles and determine the best way to account for a given transaction (Which is better, 2011). The following is a summary of key points from the SEC Report.
Industry Guidance
One point that stuck out to me was the difference in industry guidance. U.S. GAAP standards have been tailored to the needs of the business, reporting, and regulatory environment, providing standards for the different industries (Work plan for, 2012). IFRS standards, being principles based, allow for utilization across different industries. Although the IFRS standards give organizations the ability to compare their transactions with those of other organizations in other industries, it lacks the guidance that investors and preparers need. “Several commenters on the 2011 May Staff Paper communicated concerns about how industry-specific guidance would be impacted by the incorporation of IFRS. Those commenters indicated that the guidance included has been beneficial to investors and preparers.” (Work plan for, 2012) Some may argue that the principles based standards are more relaxed and give management higher levels of flexibility and leave auditors with too little guidance (McEnroe & Sullivan, 2012). The f...
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McEnroe, J. E., & Sullivan, M. (2012). CPAs' and CFOs' Perceptions Regarding Principles-Based Versus Rules-Based Accounting Standards. CPA Journal,82(3), 32-37
More on extractive activities. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ifrs.org/Current-Projects/IASB-Projects/Extractive-Activities/Pages/More-on-extractive-activities.aspx
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of the Chief Accountant. (2012). Work plan for the consideration of incorporating international financial reporting standards into the financial reporting system for u.s. issuers. Retrieved from website: http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/globalaccountingstandards/ifrs-work-plan-final-report.pdf
Which is better- principles or rules?. (2011, April 05). Retrieved from http://ifrsusa.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/which-is-better-–-principles-or-rules/
Switching to IFRS will help not just companies but also investors and public globally to compare financial statements. If every country has different financial standards, if would be problematic to compare how each company stands because they are not the same.
This organization has been setting ethical standards and publishing the Code of Professional Conduct for the profession since the early 1900s. A Code of Professional Conduct is necessary for any profession to help maintain strict ethical standards. This organization is the basis of ethical reasoning in the accounting profession because of what the Code of Professional Conduct covers. The code is comprised of a preamble and six articles. The preamble and the six articles serve as a foundation to provide guidance and guidelines for accountants to overcome any emerging ethical issues with ease on a daily basis. The six articles’ purpose is to protect the public, investors, and creditors. The AICPA Code of Professional Conduct consists of: Responsibility, Public Interest, Integrity, Objectivity and Independence, Due Care, and Scope and Nature of
The goal of the Codification is to simplify the organization of thousands of authoritative U.S. accounting pronouncements issued by multiple standard-setters. To achieve this goal, the FASB initiated a project to integrate and topically organize all relevant accounting pronouncements issued by the U.S. standard-setters including those of the FASB, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and the Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF)
To help accounting professionals easily navigate through 50-plus years of unorganized US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and standards the Trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation approved the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Accounting Standards Codification (Codification.) By codifying authoritative US GAAP, FASB will provide users with real-time and accurate information in one location. Concurrently, FASB developed the FASB Codification Research System; a web-based system allowing registered users to electronically research accounting issues. Since 2009, the codification became the single source of nongovernmental authoritative GAAP.
What is IFRS, and what is its significance in the world market? In 2001 the International Accounting Standards Board, or IASB, was created to develop a set of standards by which global financial statuses could be reported. According to financialstabilityboard.org, this set of standards, known as the International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, falls under the jurisdiction of the IFRS Foundation, which is a non-profit, private and independently run entity that exists for the public interest, is based on four principle objectives. The first is to develop a single set of international financial reporting standards (IFRS). This set would be high in quality, readily understandable, easily enforceable, and acceptable world-wide. The second objective is to encourage the use of this set of standards in the international business world. Thirdly, the ISAB would like to monitor the needs of different sizes and types of businesses in different settings. The fourth objective is to promote the adoption of the IFRS by converging national accounting standards wit...
In conclusion, appropriate principles could lead to clearer interaction and more comparable financial reporting standards without the need of the current rules. The NZ Framework has provided parts of clear and appropriate underlying principles to lead the application of NZ GAAP and other financial reporting standards. However the standards setting movement from ‘rule-driven’ approach to ‘principle-based’ approach is still half-way in New Zealand. How could principles be sufficiently clearly portrayed and put into practice require the profession to think and support. Just as Tweedie (2007, p.7) states, a principle based system will only work if preparers, auditors, users and regulators wish to make it work.
The act introduced changes to the regulation of corporate governance. The intent of the act is to protect investors from inaccurate financial reporting. It sets forth strict compliance regulations and harsh penalties for violations (Cross & Miller, 2012). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is made up of eleven titles designed to restore public opinion and trust. The titles address issues independent of one and another, but it is the fluidity among them that allows them to operate as one. The act requires companies to establish internal controls to safeguard the integrity of its financial reporting. In turn, these controls are designed to provide shareholders a level of confidence in the company’s discloser reports. Also a, year-end financial audit is completed, along with an assessment of the overall effectiveness of the company’s internal auditing programs (Cross & Miller,
Accounting principles are main consideration , certain standards like rules of operations are pillar characteristicis to built accounting statements. Accounting principles can be presented in many ways, sometimes its create confusion for readers mainly for beginners, but still acoounting principles are main tool to obtained financial statements. Its hold the whole acoounting process together.
The globalization of business has resulted in the need for compatible accounting standards that can be used internationally for financial reporting. As a result, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) were developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to unify the various financial reporting methods and create a single accounting standard which can be applied to any financial statement worldwide (Byatt). The global standardization of financial reporting will increase the readability and enhance comparability of globally traded companies’ financial statements, without the need of conversion or translation. There are a few main differences between the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S GAAP). The increasing recognition and acceptance of the International Financial Reporting Standards by accounting professionals in the United States, will affect the way in which the U.S will record financial statements in the future.
The International Accounting Standards Board, (IASB), began life as the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) in the 1973. The IASC was created in June 1973 as a result of an agreement by the accountancy bodies of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland and the United States. These countries constituted the Board of IASC at that time.
According to business, or any organization, Accounting plays a major role in developing and growth of the business. Financial standards of the organization expected as the complexities of business growth and expansion. Hence determining the implementation of the standards can vary according to the type of industry, business or organization.
I have applied the IFRS to audit half-year income statement and statement of finical position from domestic sub-company or oversea branches. This allows me to understand the difficultly of dealing with accounting report form different nations. For example, we have to negotiate each report from the U.S. with their reporter by phone. It would take incredibly long time to explain the difference in order to adjust the figures in the reports. During the stuff training, we have been taught that to be professional at everywhere and anytime. Moreover, I realise that the most important feature to be a professional accountancy is responsibility. This is because that a unit of misallocation will cost other team number a huge amount of work to correct it. The experience of taking notes of weekly conferences between senior managers and PWC partner has indicates that how does change in financial policy influence the accounting treatment. For instant, since vice-perminster Mr Le Ke Qiang who visited China Construction Bank at earlier May. He point out that the Rate of Non-Performing Loans could not exceed 7% in the “BIG Four” Chinese bank. This has led Chinese bank to relax its accounting standard of credit rating. It allows me to understand the relationship between government and financial
Judgement is a notion of relevance and reliability in developing and applying accounting policies. It is a requirement of management that they exercise a high degree of professional judgement when selecting appropriate accounting policies in the preparation of financial statements that is relevant to decision-making and assessment needs of users. Management should also consider the applicability of IFRS and AASB in dealing with similar and related issues and then the definitions, recognition criteria in the Conceptual Framework when there is no IFRS standard or interpretation in certain circumstances that are specifically applicable. Management may also consider the most current pronouncements of other standard-setting bodies to the extent that do not conflict with IFRS and AASB in developing accounting standards and accepted industry practices by using a similar conceptual framework.
The Financial Accounting Standards Boards (FASB) defined conceptual framework as a consistent of underlying concepts and the ideas that describe the nature and general purpose of financial reporting which may lead to consistent standard in accounting (Deegan 2010). The role of the conceptual framework is to ensure that financial statements in accounting are free from bias and to provide useful information that is useful for user’s decision making. The standard-setting board also formulated a range of perceptions and theories related to accounting to trigger the objectives of financial reporting. The standard-setting board keeps issuing the conceptual framework over time to ensure that the conceptual framework’s objectives are improving to provide useful financial information. The innovative work on conceptual framework was embraced in the United States by the FASB in the early 1970s. The FASB accomplished disappointment in attempting to generate a standard that at the outset might not appear to present, especially testing theoretical issues. Regardless, while attempting to achieve concession on Statement of Financial Accounting Standard, tending to the theoretical issues produced critical matter for the board members. In this manner, throughout the outset the FASB understood the requirement for an obvious conceptual framework. Based on Hines’s argument, the conceptual framework is mean to provide the ability to increase self-regulate of a profession in order to neutralizing government interference from arising. Whether this argument has been accepted or not will be discussed in more detail with supported evidence to clarify the main point about Hines’s argument. Further details about this argument will discuss below.
Marshall, D., McManus, W., & Viele, D. (2004). Accounting: What the numbers mean. [University of Phoenix Custom Edition e-text]. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies.