As I feared in earlier posts (here, here and here), but naively hoped against, the Republican-dominated SEC has carried the water for Big Business and anti-regulation ideology by eliminating the IFRS-to-U.S. GAAP reconciliation requirement. Investor advocates and other thoughtful people…
In yesterday's post, I wrote about Merrill's big bath charge. Two other recent news items confirm that not much as changed since Arthur Levitt declared war on earnings management games almost 10 years ago: the big bath accounting charge still…
In a story whose main subject was increasing auditor vigilance, the Associated Press wrote as follows on November 2, 2007: "Merrill Lynch last week reported a bigger-than-expected $8.4 billion in writedowns.... On Oct. 5, the investment bank had initially said…
Did you know that: The Sarbanes Oxley Act requires the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to inspect audit firms with one or more public companies as clients at least once every three years, and that firms with more than…
Would you like your staff to learn more aboutSEC reporting? Click here for a sample in-house training agenda!Teri Lombardi Yohn, an associate professor at Indiana University, has provided Senate testimony on the SEC's proposal (Rel. No. 33-8818)to permit foreign private…
It should come as no great surprise to savvy analysts that far too many accounting standards were written to benefit someone else other than investors and analysts. FAS 144 on impairment of long-lived asset is yet another example, but perhaps…
About 10 years ago (maybe more... the older I get, the faster time flies), I attended a conference at the SEC where an FASB board member, Michael Crooch, averred that IFRS was no better or worse than GAAP--but that GAAP…
The gap between U.S. GAAP (unintentional pun) and International Financial Reporting Standards is a Grand Canyon. How could it not be so, when U.S. GAAP takes up about 25,000 pages, while IFRS is a measly 2,500? And, that doesn't tell…
Have you noticed how a large number of companies curtailed or eliminated their stock option grant programs when FAS 123R became effective? You frequently hear proponents of stock option programs spout the line that stock options, like nothing else, provides…
I speak U.S. GAAP most of the time, so when I prepare to deliver courses on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS or IAS are basically interchangeable acronyms), I begin by re-reading some of the key standards, focusing especially on those…