Alas, I have not posted very much of late. But, it's only because I am trying to find as much time as possible to write my book describing a simple, comprehensive and robust basis of accounting that any public company could…
This is my third post for today. About 20 years ago (it’s been that long already!), I had a fairly regular gig traveling to Europe and Dubai to make presentations about SEC disclosure requirements that applied to foreign private issuers,…
Here is a summary of Chief Accountant James Schnurr’s recent remarks regarding IFRS: Despite having been a national office partner at Deloitte, and being closely involved with the firm’s promotion of IFRS, he still needed to spend a considerable amount…
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…
Hewlett Packard Co. claims they were 'misled' (to put it mildly) by accounting 'misstatements' (to put it mildly) into overpaying, on the order of $8 billion, to acquire Autonomy. But, if anybody outside of HP has precise knowledge of those…
The Mary Schapiro era at the SEC is coming to an end without, despite herculean efforts, having moved the ball forward on IFRS convergence. The final denouement was the departure of Chief Accountant James Kroeker on the day before the…
No one will ever say that U.S. GAAP revenue recognition standards are consistently principles-based, but few would say the system needs to be completely overhauled. Other than to achieve convergence of U.S. GAAP and IFRS, what will a new revenue…
Once one chooses to ignore market values and to account for loans on the basis of "amortized cost" – as the IASB has "tentatively" concluded and the FASB may now be starting to question once again – the inevitable and…
This is my second post reviewing the SEC Staff's Report on its IFRS Work Plan. My first post is here. To recap only slightly, the best news to come out of the Staff Report is a forthright acknowledgement that outright…