This is a short follow-up to yesterday's post on the upcoming SEC Roundtable on International Financial Reporting Standards. As I feared, the agenda is not even on the same planet as the core questions, indicating ever more strongly that the…
I'm looking forward to the SEC's July 7th IFRS Roundtable like surgery without anesthetic. Perhaps the SEC feels much the same, as notification was only posted to its public calendar of upcoming events within the last day or two –…
The following is more (see my earlier post) from PCAOB chair Jim Doty's June 2nd speech, describing an auditor's failure to correct an accounting misstatement that was "galling in its simplicity": "PCAOB inspectors found at one large firm that an…
This post more or less (actually somewhat more, than less) mirrors my answers to questions posed by Matt Kelly, editor of Compliance Week in a recent podcasted interview. The subject was audit firm term limits, or mandatory audit firm rotation;…
Lots of "rethinking" has been going on of late. There's a new SEC staff paper rethinking how to take IFRS adoption/convergence off life support; and the FASB and IASB are rethinking how much they can give away to special interests regarding…
When you start with a bogus asset like goodwill (itself a misnomer), it's hard to find quality in the rules that govern its measurement. The root of the problem is that business combination accounting relies on a fantasy: that an…
A reader of my post on the CFA Institute's critique of the IASB's hedge accounting exposure draft suggested that I write to the two members of the IASB, Patrick Finnegan and Patricia McConnell, who had a close association with the…
Way back in November 2008 when Christopher Cox was calling the tune, the SEC issued its proposed "Roadmap" for achieving a "single set of globally accepted accounting standards." That was the point at which the IFRS-adoption-is-inevitable" pot banging reached deafening…
I hand-waxed my 1990 Honda Accord last weekend in celebration of its 21st birthday. Since it still runs like a top, I can take some satisfaction in having 'improved' my car. On the other hand, and it should go without…
The Senate Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment has announced that it will meet this Wednesday to conduct a hearing entitled "The Role of the Accounting Profession in Preventing Another Financial Crisis." "The witnesses on Panel I will be: Mr.…