Marie Leone, CFO.com | US
October 6, 2009

Misconception

To go public on a world exchange under IFRS, you must be IFRS compliant, not SME compliant.

Therefore you would have to convert from SME to full IFRS before dealing with your AIM Nomad, or whatever.

Most of the IFRS advocates in the US (not all!) are not actively practicing accountants (CPA's) and usually cannot understand what they are reading ... and have no frame of reference for comparison as they don't fully understand the various levels of US GAAP.

Now that we are back to the Convergence Plan, we will take the time necessary to resolve the differences and properly take the best of each.

Finally, I believe that the US has over 50% of the public companies in the world, with vastly more than 50% of the public Company Revenues and Assets being in the US.

Tweedie can shuck and jive in a lot of venues, but we better get it right in the US!

Best Regards!

John

John Anderson, CPA, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CITP
Financial & IT Business Consultant
14 Tanglewood Road
Boxford, MA 01921

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Posted by John Anderson | Oct 9, 2009 9:26 PM ET

Again, Bad Idea

"Unifying the accounting world" according to Laura is NOT true. As I posted on the aritcle "IFRS on the Front Burner," there will be no consistency or comparability among financial statements prepared under IFRS because each country has carve-outs. I believe everyone should have their own opinion, but please be sure your opinion is well informed and that you don't believe everything you read...challenge what you read.

Posted by John Schmidlin | Oct 9, 2009 12:22 PM ET

Not Scared

"Why is everyone so scared of unifying the accounting rules?"

I can't speak for others; but I'm not scared, I'm not interested in what unification has become (surrender), a need to learn a system that has no advantage in economic verity, but offers substantial disruption, all to please the interests of a disproportionate few.

"Do you really think FASB is not constituent driven? Take a look at the impact lobbying groups and Congress have on the standards....we don't always choose the best standard, we choose the cheapest standard for industry to implement."

The old saw: GAAP is CR*P, but its the best thing we have; applies here; we'll be trading stateside politicking for transnational unaccountability.

"It is far better to have a set of standards that are agreed upon and uniform throughout the accounting world."

Agreed upon by who? If everybody is "scared", then its sounds like your version of agreement needs to be reached through imposition, not consent.

"We have to let go of the thought that we are better than everyone else, because it is not the truth, it is just a stubborn fiction that will make us obsolete in the end."

Huh? Even I accepted the premise that cultural relativism was a desirable attribute; who made you the arbiter of truth? In any case, I'm not interested in proving my cosmopolitan attitude by surrendering commercial sovereignty and causing massive operational disruption. If "we" aren't better; perhaps you'll be moving to Saudi Arabia and surrendering your driver's license.

"We should strive to stay at the cutting edge of standard setting and in that way influence the standards with logic and sense of cooperation."

And adopting IFRS does this how? Cooperation is fine; that's how it was peddled, but somewhere along the way convergence became surrender. Does "new" automatically equal better to you or do you just lack professional skepticism about the assertions of the IFRS cheerleaders and their babble about IFRS being "robust"?

Posted by Super Heater | Oct 8, 2009 7:17 PM ET

Why so scared?

Why is everyone so scared of unifying the accounting rules? Do you really think FASB is not constituent driven? Take a look at the impact lobbying groups and Congress have on the standards....we don't always choose the best standard, we choose the cheapest standard for industry to implement. It is far better to have a set of standards that are agreed upon and uniform throughout the accounting world. We have to let go of the thought that we are better than everyone else, because it is not the truth, it is just a stubborn fiction that will make us obsolete in the end. We should strive to stay at the cutting edge of standard setting and in that way influence the standards with logic and sense of cooperation.

Posted by Laura Prevratil | Oct 8, 2009 9:29 AM ET

IFRS is "Constituency Driven"

IFRS is a concoction of the Big 4, the transnationals and the the people at the SEC who missed Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, Adelphia, Madoff et al.

http://accountingonion.typepad.com/theaccountingonion/2009/09/ifrs-adoption-critics-vocal-minority-or-silent-majority.html

Posted by Super Heater | Oct 7, 2009 7:20 PM ET

little IFRS

Paul is justified in his comment that the USA should not be so,dare I say, "laisee e fere" in relinquishing our leadership role in authoritative accounting guidance. Maybe we should drive on the "safe" side not the right side. Let's wake up, enough already, there exists no greater accumulation of mind,wealth, pride and dignity than right hear in the USA....that's worth fighting for.

Posted by rick macchiarulo | Oct 7, 2009 11:58 AM ET

Not in my country

This is ridiculous. This country shouldn't accept the international standards any more than we should go on the metric system. And by the way, we are still the DRIVING FORCE in world economics (recession of not). We should be making the rules here.

Paul Weiss
blogs.vbpoutsourcing.com

Posted by Marcelle Green | Oct 7, 2009 9:51 AM ET