Push for IFRS Continues

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are pressing forward with a plan that would allow American companies to opt out of using U.S. accounting standards in favor of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as a way to ease global business dealings and help corporations raise capital around the world, the Washington Post reported.

But, according to the Post, critics in Congress and elsewhere warn that the initiative threatens to let industry unravel investor protections enacted since the Enron scandal.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a speech last month that the commission would soon consider issuing a timeline under which U.S. companies might be permitted to file their financial reports under international accounting rules. Now that the Senate has approved a full complement of five commissioners, such a vote could come in a few weeks, an SEC spokesman said yesterday to the Post.

Opponents say the international rules are not as strict as the U.S. system and that investors would be denied the look they now get into the workings of publicly traded companies, the Post reported.

However accounting experts do agree that it is all but inevitable that U.S. companies will increasingly use global accounting standards, aided in large measure by the efforts of Bush officials and appointees in recent years,the Post said.

-- NYSSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 7/8/08