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The types of differences that exist between IFRS and U.S. GAAP
The need for accounting standards
Us gaap and ifrs similarities
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INTRODUCTION
Accounting for derivatives has always created debates and arguments among public accountants concerning measurement bases for derivatives used in hedging activities, disclosure matters and related gains and losses (Benston, 1997). The aim to control risk in financial markets has led to various accounting standards addressing financial instruments and derivatives used in most industries. The need to shift from the historical cost base to fair value accounting has been the main target of international accounting standard setters in the context of financial instrument accounting (Lopes & Rodrigues, 2004).
BACKGROUND OF IAS 39
In 1989, The International Accounting Standard Committee (IASC) and The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) established a joint arrangement to develop broad standards to address disclosure, measurement and recognition of financial instruments. IASC distributed E40, Financial instrument (an exposure draft) for comments in September 1991 which was later re-opened in January 1994 as E48, Financial instruments. As a result of several debates, bodies separated the project into two parts: the presentation and disclosure of financial instruments and the accounting for financial instruments including hedge accounting as the other part; in June 1995, a part resulted to IAS 32 Financial Instruments: Disclosure and Presentation. The second part was improved to a discussion paper “Accounting for Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities” in March 1997 addressing matters on recognition, de-recognition, measurement and hedge accounting of financial instruments. E62, Financial instrument: Recognition and Measurement, was issued by IASC in June 1998, led to IAS 39 in December 1998, as...
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...incurred, development costs are capitalised. Noncurrent liabilities are recorded based on amortized cost. Difference between historical cost and repayment value are amortized using effective interest method. Reason for conceptual framework is harmonization, without conceptual framework there will be no meaning to the financial statement.
Recently, US GAAP and IFRS have come to an agreement that US government might adopt IFRS around year 2015; some of international companies operating US will apply both US GAAP and IFRS and if the results are satisfactory by them, the US government will adopt US GAAP. As at April 2014, there are going discussions based on IASB conceptual on some aspects of the conceptual framework such as its definition of assets and liabilities, revision of some objectives and distinction between profit, loss and comprehensive income
I think that it would be beneficial for United States to switch to IFRS, but I think that SEC should not vote to switching to IFRS after companies spend millions of dollars on converting from GAAP (Maryland).
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)
GAAP and IFRS have their similarities as well as differences. “GAAP is the accounting standard used in the US, while IFRS is the accounting standard used in over 110 countries around the world. GAAP is considered a more rules based system of accounting, while IFRS is more principles based” (Diffen). The Diffen site compared GAAP and IFRS elements using a chart. The chart is broken down into sections such as performance elements, required documents, inventory estimates and reversal, purpose of framework, etc. GAAP and IFRS both use revenue, expenses, assets, and liabilities as performance elements; but with GAAP gains, losses, and comprehensive income are added. GAAP and IFRS also use some of the same financial statements such as the balance
In the world of international finance there are two major accounting systems; GAAP, which stands for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and IFRS, which stands for International Financial Reporting Standards. The United States prefers GAAP while the European market, as well as many other countries, prefers IFRS. By 2015 the Securities Exchange Commission is anticipating a total transfer to IFRS in the United States. Though the differences between GAAP and IFRS are few, they could affect accuracy of financial reporting throughout the world. It is important to understand the differences and similarities between both GAAP and IFRS if one is to globalize ones market (Logue).
Accounting is a way to provide information that” identifies, records and communicates the economic events of an organization”(Weygandt, J., Kimmel, P., & Kieso, D., 2012). In order to ensure that businesses and accountants produce similar financial statements, they are held to generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP standards (Weygandt, et.al. 2012). In addition to GAAP standards, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed by Congress to help reduce unethical behavior by large businesses (Weygandt, et. al., 2012). The combination of the two provides reassurance to stakeholders or interested parties that the financial statements are uniform and provide reliable data. This is of the utmost importance for a business to be successful.
In conclusion, according to IFRS 13 one can say that fair value measurement is one of the accurate accounting measurements. There is some other measurement is also available but fair value measurement is trust worthy and according to international standards. As this essay include three example which are from different kind of industries like infrastructure and environment services company, investment company and manufacturer. We can say that this in widely used measurement.
In a significant step towards convergence, the FASB and IASB (“the Boards”) issued the Exposure Draft, Revenue from Contracts with Customers in 2010. The goal was to create a single joint revenue recognition standard that companies could apply consistently across industries and capital markets thereby improve financial reporting. The Boards highlighted a number of improvements in the proposed standard - removing inconsistencies, improving comparability, requiring enhanced disclosures and clarifying the accounting for contract costs. Instead of focusing on “realized/realizable” and “earned” the Exposure D...
The overall purpose of cost accounting is to advise top administration and the management team on the most suitable and cost effective methods and actions to employ based on cost, capability and efficiencies of a given product or service. It can be defined as the method where all the expenditures used during execution of business activities are gathered, categorized, examined and noted down (Horngren & Srikant, 2000). Once these numbers are gathered and recorded the information is used to determine a selling price and/or to identify possible investment opportunities. Although the principal aim or function of cost accounting is to help the business administration with their decision making and business planning process, the cost accounting data
According to the conceptual framework, the potential users of financial statements are investors, creditors, suppliers, employees, customers, governments and agencies, and the general public (Financial Accounting Standards Board, 2006). The primary users are investors, creditors, and those who advise them. It goes on to define the criteria that make up each potential user, as well as, the limitations of financial reporting. The FASB explicitly states that financial reporting is “but one source of information needed by those who make investment, credit, and similar resource allocation decisions. Users also need to consider pertinent information from other sources, and be aware of the characteristics and limitations of the information in them” (Financial Accounting Standards Board, 2006). With this in mind, it is still particularly difficult to determine whom the financials should be catered towards and what level of prudence is necessary for quality judgment.
AASB, Australian Accounting Standards Board, Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC4 ‘Definition and recognition of the elements of financial stat
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.
4) . One of the largest bankruptcies in history was enabled by accountants hiding debt and destroying the evidence to avoid implication (Buckstein, part 2 pgs. 1, 2, and 3). These unfortunate events led to the need for increased scrutiny and regulations, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (Buckstein, part 3 pg 1). This legislation inspired the creation of the Canadian Public Accountability Board (CPAB) (Buckstein, part 3 pg 1). These changes have led to an increased awareness of the need for auditor independence as well as higher standards for accounting and business in general (Buckstein, part 3 pg 1). While these measures have helped to reassure the public, there is still the question of why Accountancy is not a protected
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.
The revenue/cost period-: Revenue and the cost period in accounting that the company get income from normal business activities. It’s referred to normal business income that the company got by selling their product and service.
ABC LTD COMPREHENSIVE INCOME STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2012 NOTE 2012 Revenue 2 828,500 Cost of sales 3 (460,000) Gross profit 368,500 Other income 4 2,500 Operating expenses 5 361000 Profit before income tax 10000 Income tax expense (30%) 3,000 Profit for the year 7000 Other comprehensive income change in revaulation surplus 38500 Other comprehensive income for the year, net of tax 38500 Total comprehensive income for the year 45500 ABC LTD STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2012 NOTES 2012 ASSETS Current assets Cash and cash equivalents 6 100500 Trade and other receivables 7 45,200 Inventories 8 87700 Other current assets 9 7000