The Accounting Standards Board ( Iasb ) And The International Accounting Standard For Insurance Contracts

As the responsibilities of the global harmonization of accounting standards IFRS and GAAP transfer to IASB, FASB’s influence is waning. Advantages of the convergence include high quality financial reporting, which lowers cost of capital for investors and the cost of borrowing for companies. However, there are disadvantages to be noted, such as the costs of introducing IFRS to current and potential accountants and the risk of reducing the uniformity of financial reports due to the lax rulings of IFRS, which promotes earnings management amongst companies. Although arguments regarding the convergence remain prevalent, the completion of IFRS and GAAP is inevitable. Come year 2015, accountants, investors, and companies alike will discover whether or not the pros outweighed the cons; or vice versa.

In 1973, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was created and their mission is “to establish and improve standards of financial accounting and reporting for the guidance and education of the public, including issuers, auditors, and users of financial information.” (FASB.org, 2009a). The FASB is a private, not-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to develop generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) within the United States. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) designated the FASB as the organization responsible for setting accounting standards for public companies in the U.S. Therefore, the FASB plays a vital and important role in protecting the financial well being and the overall stability of our

In May 2008, the AICPA’s Governing Council designated the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) as the body authorized to establish international financial accounting and reporting principles under rule 202 and 203 of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. Below is an illustrative Independent Auditor’s Report on financial statements issued in conformity with IFRS.

As stated earlier, the IASB arose from specific needs of the accounting industry and the public. As international trade has increased, the need for transnational accounting information has increased as well. This sparked the demand for development of international accounting standards to make financial data between countries more comparable. In 1973, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) was formed to develop these international standards. The standards issued by the IASC, prior to 2001, were called International Accounting Standards (IASs). In 2001, the IASC made the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) the official international standard-setting body. The standards issued by the IASB are called International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) (Schroeder, Clark, & Cathey, 2011, p. 82-87).

Since 2002, Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) have been working toward “convergence” of US General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). They have made significant progress in efforts to converge critical accounting standards such as those dealing with revenue recognition, financial instruments and leases. Once these projects are complete, the "era" of convergence will be at an end. Nevertheless, the benefits for investors of eventually getting to consistently applied, high-quality, globally accepted accounting

The FASB process includes five steps to develop generally accepted accounting principles. The first step involves meeting and issuing a discussion memorandum. “A discussion memorandum is a document intended to encourage discussion and debate amongst accounting and financial professionals in regards to a current issue relating to the accounting industry” (“Discussion Memorandum”, n.d.). These are the ideas that will harm or benefit accountants. Next, they will obtain responses to this memorandum. After this is done FASB will create an exposure draft. Exposure drafts are basically an open blog about the new changes FASB is trying to implement. “The FASB issues a variety of different types of exposure documents to solicit input on its standards-setting

A joint convergence committee created the members of (FASB) and (IASB). (IASB) is recognized as an independent accounting standard-setting body that is similar to (FASB) that joins (GAAP), and is governed by the (IFRS) foundation. Due to this convergence, (AICPA) believes U.S. adoption of a single set of high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards will benefit U.S. financial markets and public companies by enabling preparation of transparent and comparable financial reports throughout the world, (American Institute of CPAs, 2016). Secondly, (AICPA) is dedicated to supplying the whole accounting profession with information, tools and IFRS.com for instance to assimilate as well as implement a new set of standards. As the (AICPA) supports continual convergence of reliable accounting standards between (IFRS) and (GAAP) the mission of completion between (IASB) and (FASB) is prolonged. (AICPA) will always support funding mechanisms of the body-making

However, this Statement maintains the scope of Interpretation 46(R) with the previous additional entities treated as special qualifying entities for purposes. The concept of these entities was eliminated in Statement No. 166. Therefore, the statement No. 167 also superseded the risks of quantitative-based and calculation of rewards to determine which enterprise, if any, provided a financial interest that controls an entity variable interest because the expectation of an access of the basic qualitative will be more efficient to identify which company has a financial interest of controlling in an entity variable interest. However, this is the way the FASB admitted to upgrade the financial reporting standards. Other additional necessity is an additional review event when deciding whether a company is a variable entity interest when there are any occurring circumstances and changes in facts. For instinct, the owner of the equity investment at risk, as a group, lose the power from voting rights to direct the activities of the entity that some characteristic impacts the economic entity’s performance. There will also be ongoing assessments of whether an enterprise is the key beneficiary of a variable interest entity.

The FASB-IASB convergence project sought to merge U.S. GAAP with IFRS in a way that would combine the best of both standards to make financial reporting easier in a world that grows smaller each day. To say that the project was challenging would be a gross understatement; convergence faced many setbacks that arose out of disagreements about the best way to represent information for a vast set of users. One reason why disagreements arose is because the process for accounting standard-setting is considerably political. When a diverse group of people argues for the interests of massive groups of other very different people, each with their own competing interests, complications are bound to occur. Everyone brings their own issues to the table,

Dramatically diverse beginning stages influenced the way to deal with the protection contracts venture. GAAP long has had benchmarks while IFRS has not. In light of input from financial specialists and others that GAAP was to a great extent addressing their needs, the FASB surrendered the key updates fundamental for full joining to concentrate on more focused on

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.

According to the research, Accounting standards exist to facilitate the preparation of high-quality and consistent general purpose financial statements to convey the useful information about the general financial condition and results related to reporting entities, such as companies, non-profit corporations and governments. And Australia adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 2005, as directed by the Financial Reporting Council in its 2002 directive to the AASB. The Australian Accounting Standards Board has published AASB 15 Revenue from Contracts and Customers, the Australian equivalent of its international namesake, IFRS 15. And the purpose of the new Standards is to provide (except in relation to some specific exceptions, such as lease contracts and insurance contracts) a single source of accounting requirements for all contracts with customers, thereby replacing all current accounting pronouncements on revenue.

When it comes to the rules of accounting, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, is in charge mostly. Their main responsibilities include making changes to the rules of accounting they think is crucial for key people and businesses as well as inform them of the changes made. To make sure the rules are understandable by the people and businesses, FASB change and update them to fit what is in today’s capabilities. One of the most important recent changes happened in the first month of twenty-sixteen: many known as “Standard Update 2016-01”.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is a private, not-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to develop generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) within the United States in the public 's interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) designated the FASB as the organization responsible for setting accounting standards for public companies in the U.S. It was created in 1973, replacing the Accounting Principles Board and the Committee on Accounting Procedure of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The Financial Accounting Standards Board 's mission is "to establish and improve standards of financial accounting and reporting for the guidance and

Indubitably, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) create and are sets of, respectively, governing bodies in today’s business world. FASB and IFRS both are constantly updating to meet and accommodate the ever changing world presently. Changes are not easy, but necessary to keep up with reform and accommodate a setting of efficiency and meet the demand of prosperity. Such reforms are prudent in order to better harmonize the accounting world and create less conflicts in reporting issues. FASB main focus is to help create generally accepted accounting