When I was at the SEC (1992 – 93), one of the senior staff members whom I admired greatly for his competence and integrity was Robert Bayless, the Chief Accountant for the Division of Corporation Finance. ("Corp Fin" is the…
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 –…
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…
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 recently read the transcripts of two recent speeches on the question of the future of IFRS in the US. They are as different as two speeches could be on this topic. As one might expect, the adopt-IFRS-or-the-sky-will-fall speech emanated…
The revenue recognition project has become a mess. Even the AICPA was forced to say as much to the FASB, while at the same time knowing that it would likely kill any prospects of IFRS adoption. But, the AICPA's definition…
Unlike BP, which eventually came to admit the actual rate at which oil has been spurting into the Louisiana Gulf, the FASB and IASB continually resist any acknowledgement that the gulf between the two financial reporting regimes will remain vast, even under…
A recurring theme of my blogging is that financial accounting standards could (and should) be much simpler, and also much better if they were simpler. I have also placed some of the blame for the recent lack of progress, especially…
The EU is simply too committed to pertuating the giddy notion that financial statements can serve investors -- and be smoothed at the same time. That's why I predicted that they would soon respond negatively and vociferously to the SEC's…