Converting Financial Statements from U.S. GAAP to IFRS

A Comprehensive Illustration

Peter Harris, CPA, CFA, and Eva K. Jermakowicz, PhD, CPA, and Barry Jay Epstein, PhD, CPA/CFF

IFRS has become the required or permitted accounting framework for financial reporting in many of the world's financial markets, whether explicitly endorsed or integrated into national regimes based on IFRS. Even though IFRS is not currently permitted by the SEC for U.S. registrants, U.S. accountants need to know IFRS—and how it differs from U.S. GAAP—because they will encounter it in the financial statements of foreign companies whose securities trade in the United States, foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies, and U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. Although the IASB and FASB have reduced the differences between these sets of standards over the past decade, several remain.