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…
If you want to appreciate the political circus masquerading as "due process" in accounting standards setting, I recommend that you read two recent documents. The first one is the CFA Institute's stinging 39-page comment letter* on the IASB's hedge accounting…
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…
It seems that I was not the first to report that IFRS adoption in India could be on the rocks. Compliance Week editor Matt Kelly posted a link to their short blurb headlined "India Could Abandon Mandatory IFRS" from February…
I need to be careful here, because this is something I was told second hand: India has bailed out of IFRS. My source is a member of the Consultative Advisory Group of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board. He…
After I left the SEC, Executive Enterprise Institute signed me up to produce and chair various SEC and financial reporting courses. Our collaboration is still going strong, and they have given me lots of exposure to guest speakers, many of…
Some folks can see fine art in a soup can label, or poetry in a user's manual. I don't mean to brag when I state that I have a similar talent. I seem to have a knack for stumbling upon interesting accounting…
Last February the SEC announced, that their IFRS Roadmap had morphed into a "staff work plan." The staff was supposed to publish its first progress report sometime in October, and wouldn't you know, it was posted to the SEC's website…
As I wrote a few weeks ago, the most recent display of public handwringing is taking place in Europe over the distinct possibility that one of the Big Four could be forced out of the auditing business. According to a…