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Late last week, the chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), Robert Herz, announced a public forum to discuss a new national blueprint for moving the US to international financial reporting standards.
This forum, the “FAF/FASB Forum on High-Quality Global Accounting Standards: Issues and Implications for US Financial Reporting” to be held New York on June 16th, will discuss setting up international accounting standards and how to work with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) on their convergence project to create "something better than either US GAAP or IFRS alone”. Those taking part in the forum will include the American Institute for Certified Public Accountants, the US Internal Revenue Service, the SEC, the PCAOB plus representatives from industry, academia and the law.
Herz acknowledges that conversion will not be easy, particularly if an improved version of IFRS is being proposed. Herz expects the forum to "identify the most orderly, least disruptive, and least costly approach" to move US public companies to IFRS plus a target date and a timetable. Amongst points for discussion are the cut-over process, the elimination of local country rule exceptions that would deviate from whatever version of IFRS is accepted by IASB, changes required to US regulations, the question of funding the exercise, how to change the CPA exam to conform to IFRS, and how to develop the necessary educational process required to bring the US into line with IFRS.
FASB recognise that the single set of global accounting standards will require a single standard setter – and that may not be FASB — something that Herz and other FASB members have publicly acknowledged.
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