What’s your take on convergence?

BVWireIssue #102-4
March 23, 2011

In last week’s BVWire we reported on Sir David Tweedie’s speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the need for the U.S. adopt IFRS this year. This week we report on The Accounting Onion’s response to Tweedie’s speech. In his post "’Convergence Flaws’ v. Convergence Spin” Tom Selling blogs “how many of those Dodd-Frank and fair value bashers actually understand (or care) that GAAP and IFRS will be far from converged even after the frantic race to the bottom on leasing, financial instruments and revenue recognition has been declared fini in just a few months?”

Selling provides a quick list of projects “that were abandoned, never fully addressed or mutilated by "convergence":

  • Impairment of long-lived assets
  • Research and development costs
  • Borrowing costs
  • Pensions
  • Financial statement presentation, statement of cash flows and disclosures
  • Contingent liabilities
  • Business combinations
  • Joint ventures
  • Oil and gas accounting
  • Agriculture
  • Goodwill impairment

“Rigorous SEC enforcement of IFRS with only 'soft-touch' enforcement elsewhere in the world will only make us out to be chumps,” says Selling. What do you think?  Send your comments to editor@bvwire.com

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