While on the cusp of one more financial crisis, the time has come to ask yet again: What is the FASB accomplishing that will fix the deeply flawed accounting by banks for loan losses? Answer: nada, nichts, bupkis, absolutely nothing. Instead, the FASB has been wallowing…
There are two types of people in the world: those who like to divide people into two types, and those who don't. Too simple? OK, try this one: some people find taxonomies very helpful; and others, not so much. I really like…
As I stated in my post on ASU 2015-03, the accounting for debt issue costs is relatively small potatoes. The point was to illustrate that the FASB’s so-called “simplification initiative” was driven by politics, and that actual simplification might, or…
I’m not going to beat around the bush here. James Schnurr’s first major speech as the SEC’s Chief Accountant amounted to 3,000 words of next-to-nothing. He achieved this prodigious rhetorical feat with a medley of five disparate topics, such that each…
Pick any class of upper-level accounting students, and give them a few cases of supplier/customer relationships for which “gross versus net presentation” of revenues is an issue, and I’ll wager that the class will come to a consensus on the presentation…
OK, let’s start with something positive. The FASB recently issued proposals to simplify two accounting topics, and whaddya know, I am actually in favor of one of them. The "extraordinary item” income statement category is rarely used, and the highly…
There is so much I would like to write about, yet so little time... I could write about the latest half measure on the accounting for repurchase agreements (ASU 2014-11)— and that Tom Linsmeier’s lone dissent is highly similar to…
“FASB is preparing to consider foundational changes that could significantly alter financial reporting in the future as well as standards improvements that will reduce complexity, board Chairman Russell Golden said … in a speech at the 13th annual Financial Reporting Conference…
Two posts ago, I provided two reasons for the PCAOB* to take the opportunity of its auditor’s report project to look closely at the meaning of, “fairly presented … in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles”: Truth in labeling —…
The International forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR) has published its second annual survey of audit inspections of the Big Four plus BDO and Grant Thornton firms around the world: “The leading areas of deficiency in inspected auditors of ……