International Financial Reporting Standards Board

Fosbre, A. B., Kraft, E. M., & Fosbre, P. B. (2009). THE GLOBALIZATION OF ACCOUNTING STANDARDS: IFRS VERSUS US GAAP. Global Journal Of Business Research (GJBR

For nearly half a century, a movement has been underway to establish a high-quality, comprehensive set of international accounting standards, with the goal of facilitating international trade and investment. In the global capital market, differences in the rules of accounting for the purposes of recognition, measurement, and reporting of financial results have impaired the smooth transfer of information across borders. Given that it accounts for nearly a third of the global market, there is considerable pressure for the United States to conform to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). While moving to a single set of accounting standards could create

A set of internationally recognized accounting standards facilitates capital flows across borders. Globally accepted standards make financial information readily comparable for its users. Foreign investors are more inclined to put money into a U.S. company if they are familiar with the company’s financial reporting. Conversely, U.S. investors will find it easier and less risky to invest in foreign companies when they know the local accounting standards (Epstein 2009). This will make U.S. companies and capital markets more competitive, since it saves costly reconcilition of different standards. Preparers, investors, auditors, and others will benefit from these cost effieciencies, since a Results of an IFAC Survey among accounting leaders around the world with respect to the importance of convergence to International Financial Reporting Standards for economic growth in their countries:

On November 18, 2002 the FASB and IASB came together at a meeting in Norwalk, Connecticut to start the wheels in motion for the purpose of establishing a new set of financial standards. The FASB and IASB are committed to create financial standards that will be accepted both domestically and internationally that are of high quality and compatible for financial reporting. At present more than a 100 countries already use the International Financial Reporting Standards. The U.S. at present has not accepted a changed in accounting procedures; therefore, this is going to be a major task for both the FASB and IASB to complete successfully this union. I do believe that the partnership between the FASB and IASB will achieve the goals of creating a common financial reporting set of standards that will be accepted by all.

In a previous study on the usefulness of convergence, a comparison of firms implementing IFRS in 27 countries matched against sample of similar size and industry firms in the US found, the use of converged IFRS standard by US firms instead of US GAAP led to a more established accounting system with value relevance comparability (E.Barth, R.Landsman, Lang, & Williams, 2012, p. 6). In contrast, Jamal et al (2010) state “The need for a global accounting regulator is overstated. A global regulator is unlikely to help achieve the stated goals of comparability and consistency of financial reporting on a global basis” Based on the joint standard of IFRS15/ASU606 issued, there appears to be a compromise on both IASB and FASB’s part to include and exclude certain aspects therefore, although the gap is reduced, full convergence is far from being achieved. The decision makers at IASB therefore, due to inability to achieve the true goal of convergence, is resorted to undertake a vague position and compromise with the ‘allocation model’ (now known as ‘performance obligation’ model in the final joint standard issued) (Biondi, et al., 2014, p. 29). Nevertheless, in terms of usefulness to stakeholders, the joint standard addresses the problem arising from the original IAS18&IAS11/ASC605

As people need to speak the same language to understand each other while talking, participants on the global market also need to have similar accounting language in order to communicate in between. For that reason, it is not a surprise that the business world is moving towards establishment of International Financial Reporting Standards,

Since 2005, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have encouraged countries to adopt a set of accounting standards that is internationally recognised in order to improve transparency between users and providers of financial reports. The understandability and interpretation are also important factors behind the driving forces of implementing such a standard.

The objective of this paper is to deliberate the concerns regarding implementing International Financial Reporting Standards in United States. There is no scope that IFRS standards would be fully implemented in the United States. The main reasons are two regulatory bodies Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) are unable to integrate on the concept of convergence. Due to current economic conditions, FASB and IASB came together to reduce the differences between U.S. GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards). Furthermore, Security and Exchange Commission has

Accounting standard has been introduced after the World War II where every country has its own proper accounting practices such as the United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (the US GAAP). As time flies, international trade and foreign direct investment has experience a period of rapid growth where the companies begin to expand their business in a larger scale. Frequent international mergers and acquisitions especially by American corporations to the European companies has created the diverse accounting practices where comparing financial statements between country to another become very difficult to do. To lessen the difference and promote international harmonization in accounting practices, Sir Henry Benson, senior partner in the United Kingdom (UK) firm of Cooper Brothers & Co. led the founding of International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) and issued the International Accounting Standard (IAS). Since 2001, the new IAS is known as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and has been issued by International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Ball (2006) stated in his article that “the notion that uniform standards alone will produce uniform financial reporting seem naïve”. I strongly agreed with this for several reasons which I will discuss further below with real world examples.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) enforced the harmonization of the accounting standards into a single set of accounting standards that is to be used globally in the preparation of financial statements and is called the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). This essay will discuss the benefits of developing the IFRS, which is to enhance and increase the quality of the companies’ financial statements through transparency and comparability, value relevance, timely loss recognition by presenting evidence from Spain and Bahrain. Other benefits include facilitating cross-border investments; reducing equity cost, and decreasing earnings management. Hence, this allows companies to provide information that will be

The framework serves as a guide for the standard-setting bodies to develop International Accounting Standards and how to effectively enforce the use of each standard (IAS, 2010). These IASs were first issued by the International Accounting Standards council (IASC) and later on approved and amended by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). These standards are crucial for sustaining high level of financial reporting and also assure that the financial statements are comparable to prior years for the same entity and various other entities around the world. The financial statements must be presented in accordance with the standards and among these standards is the essential IAS 1, that lays down the basis for presenting the financial statements.

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) identified the five ele-ments of financial statements as the following: (1) assets, (2) liabilities, (3) capi-tal, (4) income, and (5) expenses.

Since 1973, the International Accounting Standard Committee, now known as the IASB, has been focused on developing a single set of high-quality international accounting standards as an effort to make financial information and financial disclosure more understandable to users around the globe. As the business world became more global, regulators, investors, large companies and auditing firms began to realize the importance of having common standards in all areas of the financial reporting chain (AICPA, IFRS, 2011). As of August 2014, the list of countries that have adopted international accounting standards, or local variants of them, has increased to 173 countries, with six more (U.S., Japan, India, Malaysia, Colombia, and Russia) currently considering adopting IFRS (www.iasplus.com, 2014).

According to Delloite (http://www.iasplus.com/en/resources/ifrsf/due-process/background-to-ifrs)”The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is an independent non-profit organization that develops and approves International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs)”. In mainly usage, the term 'International Financial Reporting Standards ' (IFRSs) has both a narrow and a broad meaning. Firstly, IFRSs refers to the new numbered series of pronouncements that the IASB is issuing, as distinct from the International Accounting Standards (IASs) series issued by its predecessor. More broadly, IFRSs refers to the entire body of IASB pronouncements, including standards and interpretations approved by the IASB and IASs and SIC at 2001 interpretations approved by the predecessor International Accounting Standards Committee.” The IASB has all responsibilities for the technical matters of the IFRS Foundation. The objective of financial reporting is the foundation of the conceptual framework. Other aspects of the framework - qualitative characteristics, elements of financial statements, recognition and measurement - will build on that foundation with the aim of ensuring that financial reporting achieves its objective. The goal of IFRS as said at (source) is”to develop a set of high quality, understandable, enforceable and globally accepted financial reporting standards based upon clearly articulated principles”. To surmount these difficulties and still connect accounting to

IFRS rules does not exempt cash flow statements in any kind of situations; whereas according to GAAP under some circumstances exemptions of cash flow statements are limited for certain investments and entities.