The International Accounting Standards Board

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is the international accounting standards developed by the ISAB. The ISAB have set up the Disclosure Initiative to examine where IFRS could be improved.

Reasons why the US Must Not Adopt IFRS 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

Xuelian Li Week 2 Assignment ACCT 525 Professor Bender March 13, 2015 United Kingdom Adopted IFRS IFRS is a set of accounting standards promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), an international standard-setting body based in London. It was designed as a common global language for business affairs so that company accounts are comparable and understandable across international boundaries (Ghosh, 2010). In June 2002, the European Union (EU) adopted an IAS Regulation requiring European companies listed in an EU/European Economic Area (EEA) securities market to prepare their consolidated financial statements in accordance with IFRS starting in 2005 (United Kingdom).

Establishment of a single financial reporting standard with full universal acceptance is unattainable on various levels. Due to the prevailing economic, political, and cultural environments, it is unconvincing and irrational to have a uniform set of global financial reporting standards. There are controversies regarding the different types of economic systems used worldwide, centralizing the major difference in the systems to be the governmental role and influence on market activity. For there to be a proper measure in comparability in financial statements there is an intrinsic need for a correlated set of economic activities along with an equivalent accounting system. If the US were to adopt IFRS there is a questionable level to the amount of comparison we can recognize for nations under different economic systems. Applying this even further, accounting under a new universal regulation will have economic consequences; changes to regulation will inevitably lead to changes to a nation’s economy. With that said, IFRS is currently not compatible with US corporate governance.

(Horton et al., 2013) stated that the adoption of IFRS (IFRS) requires changes in the financial and accounting area, in most systems and processes, as well as in the area of human resources companies. The accounting policies in accordance with international standards are definite principles, techniques, sources, agreements and practices implemented by an enterprise in preparing and presenting financial statements IFRS IFRS-audited according to IAS and ISA-COSO internal control, putting in operation and economic good accounting for disclosure of general purpose accounting information

With the number of countries that have switched to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for their financial reporting, as well as the continued efforts made between the IFRS and US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP), it is evident that international convergence is an overall appealing idea for global reporting. With that said, US GAAP has worked with IFRS to create a universal standard; and while progress has been made to diminish variances between the standards, there are still large, if not unattainable, efforts ahead of us. The hype over a proposed uniform set of global accounting standards appears to be stunted by the lost efforts in the convergence project between the US GAAP and IFRS. As the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) moves forward with its standards setting, there must be a reevaluation of the goal for reporting standards and efforts with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

Facilitating the Adoption of IFRS/IAS International financial reporting standards (IFRS) are the attempt of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to globally harmonize accounting standards and financial reports (Doupnik & Perera, 2014). Such standards are principles developed by the IFRS foundation and the IASB whose goal are to implement international accounting standards (IAS) which promote transparency, accountability, and efficiency of financial reporting to ensure organizations draft financial reports that are comparable internationally (IFRS Foundation, 2015). In an effort to facilitate the adoption of IFRS, accounting professional bodies worldwide such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) have implemented initiatives to guide and train their members in understanding the new standards adopted within their espective country.

Accounting and Business Research, International Accounting Policy Forum. pp. 5-27. 2006 5 International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): pros and cons for investors Ray Ball* Abstract—Accounting in shaped by economic and political forces. It follows that increased worldwide integration of both markets and politics (driven by reductions in communications and information processing costs) makes increased integration of financial reporting standards and practice almost inevitable. But most market and political forces will remain local for the foreseeable future, so it is unclear how much convergence in actual financial reporting practice will (or should) occur. Furthermore, there is little settled theory or evidence on which to

The U.S Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and the International Financial Reporting Standards are the two major accounting standards used by accountants today. The GAAP is currently used only by firms in the United States, while the IFRS is used by firms in 110 countries, including those in the European Union. The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission is in charge of GAAP for public companies, while the Financial Accounting and Standard Board overlooks private companies. The standards for IFRS are set by the International Accounting Standard Board. The main difference that separates the GAAP and the IFRS is that the GAAP was constructed based on rules, while the IFRS was created based on accounting principles. Although there are many similarities in the way most things are done, there are also striking differences regarding the way financial statements are reported, including inventory valuation, balance sheets presentation, asset definition, etc. This paper seeks to identify some of the major discrepancies between GAAP and IFRS, and present arguments people have made for and against converging the two standards.

In any case it is being realized that the adoption of the IFRS certainly creates a lot of advantages not presently realized in the use of the GAAP. These accounting standards are generally the rules and regulations that companies and organizations are expected to adhere to in the process of presenting their financial statements to the stakeholders(Williams, 2009). The change from the GAAP to the IFRS is certainly needed given that the financial environment has certainly grown more complex and intricate to the extent that such differences in the accounting standards can only create the frequent challenges realized in the transactions(Watts, 2003).

Both speakers have made credible arguments towards the contradictory nature of the International Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards. Accounting standards are a method of regulating the reporting of everyday transactions within the profession, alongside laws, regulations and codes of professional bodies (Guest Lecturer, 2014). Regulatory regimes are necessary as they

1. Introduction With the globalization of international trades, it is necessary to design a common accounting language to compare the financial performance of companies from different countries. For this reason, International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) publish the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) which are principle-based in order to improve the quality of financial reporting and to harmonize accounting standards in 2001.

Running head: IFRS IFRS: A Review of the Literature Intermediate Accounting III (10089) Abstract Due to the global integration of business and finance throughout the world, approximately 113 countries have adopted or are working on convergence with IFRS. This paper is a look at the history and an examination of where IFRS stands internationally and with the United States. For several decades the industrialized world has been working toward an international set of accounting standards. Since IFRS has become the de facto international accounting language, it is logical that it will be accepted as that standard in the near future.

The IASB Conceptual Framework is a framework developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). In a nutshell, what this framework does is to lay out the concepts needed for accurate preparation and presentation of financial statements to external users such as auditors, tax authorities, investors, regulatory authorities and so on. According to the IASB, the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting does the following;

(b) Others to help them understand and apply those standards. The existing Conceptual Framework of IASB’s was developed by its predecessor body IASC (International Accounting Standards Committee) in 1989. The material on the objective of financial reporting was first revised by the IASB in 2010 with the US national standard-setter, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). This ED sets out the proposal for a revised Conceptual framework. It has been developed on the behalf of responses received on (‘the Discussion Paper) which was published in July 2013. (IFRS, May 2015)