The Financial Executives International (FEI) has just filed comment letters with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to address concerns regarding the effective dates of the major convergence standards outlined in the FASB and IASB Memorandum of Understanding, anticipated to be issued by June 2011. The current proposed dates “present challenges to realizing a high quality implementation,” the FEI says, and recommends the Boards deliberate the effective dates and transition of the major convergence standards “holistically” rather than on a standard-by-standard basis, taking into consideration the impact to companies and the interdependencies among the standards. In its letters, FEI also asks the Boards to:
- Provide a three-year implementation period for the body of converged standards through an aggregated effective date, also allowing for early adoption.
- Permit preparers, when practical, to choose the method and manner of initial adoption (retroactive restatement, cumulative effect, prospective, etc).
FEI “continues to support the Boards' mission to establish and improve financial accounting and reporting standards through the convergence standards,” its Executive Committee says, in a current release. “Our committee is uniquely positioned to assist the FASB and IASB in [developing] strategies to address the multitude of potential challenges resulting from the implementation of these new standards, and we welcome the opportunity to work closely with the Boards as we draw closer to the desired date."