The Inevitability of International Accounting Harmonization

Globalization has been changing the world. It has interconnected people, nations, and even businesses. Today´s business can share information to investors around the world thanks to the intelligent software of the actual society. Being more specific, the way in which investors and users evaluate businesses performance is through the information contemplated in their financial statements. These financial statements illustrate the current assets, liabilities, and stockholder equity a company has in order to help users take economic decisions. However, not all the companies are regulated to provide the same structuralized information around the world. Each country possesses its own accounting standard that regulates the preparation of financial statements of a company. In that way, companies’ information might differ between countries making the comparability between financial statements difficult to be implemented by users in order to assess the performance of foreign businesses. In view of the need of a globally accepted accounting standard that promotes uniform standards for worldwide financial reporting, the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), which then becomes replaced by the International Accounting Standard Board in 2001, was created (Cathey and Schroeder 130). The IASB issues International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) that stands as the set of accounting standards that prepare and present the financial

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 the course of history and as per the needs and complexity of financial system, almost each and every country in the world developed their own accounting principles and financial reporting system in accordance to their rule, law, culture and social order. However, as the world moves more toward globalization, world market economy get close to each other, International investments spread out throughout the globe especially among countries with open economy. Thus, the diversity in accounting practices is not conducive for boosting international investments, and businesses in today’s market. For example, guess you invest in the international market and you are required to prepare a financial report in compliance with rule of that country and then you need to convert the report to where your company is originally resident. First of all, it is a hassle for the investing companies to report based on the host country rule and regulation. Second, it creates a lot extra costs which fall on investors to compare the result of the report with different countries and may not be able to make a good comparison anyway. Thus, it limited the effectiveness of the international capital markets as well as cross border investment. (International Accounting Pg, 65)

In Germany, tax law has influence strongly on accounting and financial reporting. The historical is the main reason for this linkes is between taxation and financial reporting. In 1874, the corporate income taxation has been introduced to the Commercial Code in 1862. It was convenient to link corporate income taxation to existing financial statement. Moreover, EU Directives and the forces of globalization are the two main external factors that have influence financial reporting in Germany in recent years.Even before the EU’s decision; large German companies like Daimler-Chrysler that had their shares listed on foreign stock exchanges were already using internally acceptable accounting standards.

The IOSCO plan does not cover accounting standards.(66) These standards are important for providing financial statements in a scheme that are prepared in the similar manner as those by issuers from other countries. The development of international accounting standards is the subject of a distinct project by IOSCO, and many accounting professionals who are concomitant with that undertaking are hopeful that a satisfactory solution is within reach.(67) Supposing, however, that an agreement is possible on a core set of financial standards and that they too are embraced by securities regulators as compulsory for foreign issuers, the road to commonality has at least two other impediments.

We now want to look into the International Accounting Standards Board and framework for the preparation and presentation of financial statements. The conceptual frameworks are split into five categories and are in the following order: the objective of financial statements; underlying assumptions; the qualitative characteristics that determine the usefulness of information in financial statements; the definition, recognition, and measurement of the elements from which financial statements are constructed; and the concepts of capital and capital maintenance (Ankarath 11). The standards under IFRS are beginning to become much more popular across the world for several different reasons. The International Financial Reporting Standards are currently being used by at the very least 100 countries and “[was] expected that by 2011, more than 150 countries [would] have adopted them” (Ankarath 1). We happen to find this important because it seems that a lot of countries are starting to adopt IFRS to report their financial statements. One of the reasons why many countries made the switch over to IFRS is because “the decision of the U.S. SEC to allow foreign private issuers to list their securities on U.S.

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

This research project will inform the reader of the difference between the United States accounting standards and International accounting standards. The United States uses the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to issue financial reporting procedures. The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). There are proposals for the United States to adopt the International standards. Financial reporting procedures are debated about the United States using the Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures (GAAP) or following the global procedures. This

‘There has been a worldwide demand from regulators, investors, businesses, and auditing firms for a single set of high-quality, globally-accepted accounting standards. The American Institute of CPA’s (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” (aicpa.org).

Why do we study comparative accounting? Countries around the world have different aspects such as taxation, legal systems, culture and colonial influence that differ the way accounting is reported. Ultimately the need for fair presentation is the final objective to comparative accounting. Thousands of years ago when accounting was first practiced, each country practiced financial reporting according to the power and strengths in their country, regardless of how accounting was reported in neighboring countries. Nowadays, because the world is becoming more globalized and harmonized, standard-setters feel the need to report their accounting in a uniform way. The International Accounting Standards Board [IASB] was formed as a non-for-profit

The paper will use documented secondary sources to evaluate the corporation’s performance in the international business environment about the suitable managerial accounting processes that the

The accounting world is shaped by stringent and clear rules, principles, standards and guidelines. These are all meant to define accounting operations and reporting discipline. With the emergence of International Accounting Standards (IAS), which was later replaced by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the accounting concepts, analysis, disclosures, reporting and presentation became easier and practical. Currently, accountants, managers and related parties find it concrete and consistent in protecting professional boundaries.

The business environment appears to get smaller with each passing day. Therefore, accountants face troubles in remaining protected from the progressions that occur around the world (Diaconu and Coman 2006). Globalization hint at the regularly changing procedure of incorporation and connection among governments, individuals and organizations. The key three things that declare incorporate globalization venture, worldwide exchange and data innovation (Diaconu and Coman 2006). Globalization moves the world to another level and places it to more at the leading edge statures reliably. Outstandingly, globalization procedure have both negative and constructive effects on accounting (Godfrey and Chalmers 2007). This is unmistakable as in,

At the World Bank Conference held in 1999, Jules W. Muis aptly states “….power to control the language of business is important. Standard setters will come ahead as the world grows smaller, and economic independence is no longer an option but a reality. So it happens that today a good observer can see the preparations of battle for the control of the international language of business slowly unfolds…” In this context, the statement of Harvey Pitt, US SEC Chairman at SEC Conference, (2002) is worth mentioning, “High quality global accounting standards are needed to improve the ability of investors to make informed financial decisions. Companies must keep pace with this progress in order to promote and protect their business credibility in the international market place.” It is for this reason that the convergence of accounting standards is so important. The process of convergence is accepted as the key factor to implement a single set of accounting standards across the globe. The paper follows a scholarly search approach to discuss the recent status of harmonization in accounting practices. 2. Objectives The objectives of current study are very straight forward. The very basic issue is to explain the need of harmonization in practices. Later on, it focuses on the regulatory authorities who are working actively to bring the convergence into practice. The paper also presents

The development and practice of accounting is affected by the international business environment. Several influential factors that impact the international environment are the country 's legal system, the political and economical relationships with other countries, as well as the social and cultural climate. From an economical perspective many variables that play into the development and practice of international accounting such as the level of inflation, strength of funding, growth pattern of the country 's economy and the country 's level of independence.