Aicpa Audit And Accounting Guide

Throughout the years, the globalization of business has steadily increased resulting in a growing acceptance of a generalized set of standards for accountants throughout the world. In April 2001, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) was created to assume the responsibilities of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) was established in 1973. The IASB is composed of fourteen members representing nine countries, including China, Japan, Australia and the United States, and is sponsored by a variety of financial institutions, corporations, banks and accounting firms. In 2002, a year after their inception, the IASB United with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to combine their knowledge and develop a set of high quality accounting standards that would be compatible with all countries in order to complete international business affairs and their accounting. This set of global accounting standards is referred to as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), 12,000 enterprises in 113 countries have already adopted the use of IFRS. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), one of the main proponents to develop a set of standards to act as a guide for financial reporting in cross-border provision, urged the adoption of IFRS States United on November 14, 2008, the SEC announced that they expect the U.S. to adopt IFRS starting in 2014 with the roadmap and objectives to be achieved to meet the schedule.

GAAP and IFRS

While GAAP and IFRS still cover the same issues and provide guidance for accounting and financial statements, there are many differences that must be taken during the conversion process. In international accounting standards (IFRS): A background paper prepared in 2008 AICPA, AICPA states that the FASB and IASB have been working to converge the themes of IFRS to U.S. GAAP in order to reduce any problems caused by main differences between the two sets of standards. The AICPA also lists some important differences that remain over the convergence projects:

• IFRS does not permit Last In First Out (LIFO) inventory costing method.
• IFRS uses a one-step method for impairment write-downs rather than the two-step method used in U.S. GAAP, which makes more likely reductions in value.
• IFRS has a different probability threshold and measurement objective for contingencies.
• IFRS does not allow for curing violations of contractual obligations of debt after the end of the year.
• IFRS guidance regarding revenue recognition is less extensive than GAAP and contains relatively little industry-specific education (AICPA, 2008).

The site (IFRS http://www.ifrs.com) also mentions these differences with what they believe is the dissimilarity of the foreground, "IFRS provides much less detail throughout ... IFRS forms a book about two inches thick. In contrast, U.S. GAAP contains some 17,000 pages of detailed rules and guidance "(IFRS FAQ", 2008). The United States must find a way to supplement their accounting without any additional guidelines provided by U.S. GAAP. The FASB and IASB both hope to resolve most of the key issues to the SEC allows listed companies to apply IFRS to their accounts.

Roadmap to the SEC

Since 1988, the SEC has played a leading role in international efforts to acquire a basic accounting standards. A recurring question that the SEC has established is that "issuers wishing to raise capital in many countries are facing increased compliance costs and inefficiencies in the preparation of multiple sets of financial statements to comply JURISDICTION different.