...Will there be one set of accounting standards in use throughout the world in the next five years? Although there has been much talk about the eventual standardization of all accounting methods into one complete set of accounting principles, the truth is that there are several obstacles that currently prevent one full compilation. US GAAP and IFRS are two of the leading accounting methods in the world and the majority of their pronouncements are very similar when compared by concept. However there are several treatments upon which they differ. When it comes to the treatment of inventory US GAAP allows for both the FIFO and LIFO methods to be used provided that they are accounted for consistently or provide sufficient reason for change. IFRS however strictly prohibits the use of LIFO and only recognizes the accounting for cost of goods sold on the FIFO or weighted average cost basis. This really is a very big stumbling block on the path to convergence because of the immense tax advantages enjoyed by US GAAP adhering companies. There is also the matter of asset impairment which under IFRS allows companies to write down the value of an impaired asset in one period and then write up its value in a future period given that it meets certain criteria. US GAAP on the other hand only allows for the write down of an asset and prohibits its revaluation in the future. Although the majority of the world uses IFRS it is still a relatively new accounting method and therefore lacks much of...
Words: 327 - Pages: 2
...Will there be one set of accounting standards in use throughout the world in the next five years? As American companies continue to expand their businesses abroad, the need for a single set of accounting standards is growing. Currently there are about 12,000 companies that are operating in more than 100 countries, each of which requires their financial statements to be reported under the same guidelines and standards. All of these countries abide by the International Financial Reporting Standards, making it easier for companies abroad to have financial cohesion. Unfortunately the United States has yet to adjust their financial standards, but many feel this necessary change is coming. Signs of a possible change arose when the SEC approved the use of International Financial Reporting Standards by non-U.S. registrants as long as they included reconciliation between the IFRS and the U.S. GAAP standards. Further signs of change arose when the SEC dropped this reconciliation requirement only a year after enacting it. As the SEC is noticing, the need for a uniform financial standard is not only growing but it is a necessary change as there is many advantages to having one set of accounting standards. One of these advantages is that having one global set of accounting standards will eliminate the costs of preparing multiple financial statements under various standards. Another advantage is that this will also reduce the need for multiple audit opinions that multinational firms...
Words: 470 - Pages: 2
...Will there be one set of accounting standards in use throughout the world in the next five years? Currently many countries have been using Accounting guidelines based on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) these are managed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). The United States holds companies accountable to Accounting Guidelines maintained by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) which issues the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in the U.S. markets are overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The United States Financial Community is actively looking at the possibility to transition to one global accounting standard; One step towards future adoption is the SEC has recently allowed foreign firms to file reports that conform to IFRS standards rather than mandating they prepare documents using GAAP. (Kimmel, Donald , and Jerry, 64) In July 2012 the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant released report outlining the SEC’s reviews of IFRS standards against GAAP standards to identify gaps. While the SEC did not make a recommendation on adoption in the future it was a first step in preparing for an eventual decision. What was found is that while IFRS is a comprehensive standard there are still steps that must be taken before the U.S. can adopt the standards. (PwC) In 2006 the FASB and IASB started work on reconciling the two policies and identified 12 areas in which the IFRS standards differ from...
Words: 548 - Pages: 3
...Surysekar Discussion Essay “TWO WORLDS ACCOUNTING IS OKAY FOR NOW” By: Ramon Ramirez George Bush Sr. once said“…We are facing with the opportunity to forge, for ourselves and for future generations, a New World Order. A World where the rule of law, not the law of the Jungle, governs the conduct of Nations…A World…in which a credible United Nations can use its peace keeping role to fulfill the promise and visions of the UN founders. ” The world was listening and since then, globalization started to lurk around the hemisphere. Business has gone as usual, yet people ignored the reality that with so many treaties, so many agreements, so many compromises, the Big Wide World as we knew it once, was becoming so small that anyone would hold it in the palm of one hand. Business Globalization, once seemed to be impossible, now a reality of life. Companies throughout the world conduct business and interrelate with each other, regardless of race or culture. The obvious next step is accounting globalization. The Convergence is not a new concept; according to Mark Conmy (2011) “convergence has been discussed for almost a decade...is a done deal.” These words might bring hope to those who expect the changes as a positive solution to a new world order. But, Floyd Norris, in his article “Accounting that comes in flavors, differs from Mr. Conmy. Norris says “The world was supposed to be moving to a single set of high quality accounting standards…That is not going to happen.” If...
Words: 766 - Pages: 4
...Switzerland. it is the world`s foremost Nutrition. Health & Wellness Company committed serving consumers all over the world. Their focus on responsible nutrition and promoting heaLth and wellness is a core value, emphasizing responsibility and sustainability. Nestlé products are sold in almost every country in the world. MISSION STATEMENT Nestlé is dedicated to providing the best foods to people throughout their day. Throughout their lives, throughout the world. With our unique experience of anticipating consumers’ needs and creating solutions. Nestle contributes to your well-being and enhances your quality of life.” COST ACCOUBTING INFORMATION SYSTEM OF NESTLE INPUT MEASUREMENT BASIS STANDARD COSTING Nestle is using STANDARD COSTING as a base for input measurement Standard costs are usually associated with a company’s costs of direct material, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead. Rather than assigning the actual costs of direct material, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead to a product, nestle’ like many manufacturers assigns the expected or standard cost. This means that its inventories and cost of goods sold will began with amounts reflecting the standard costs, nor the actual costs, of a product Nestle’, of course still has to pay the actual costs. As a result there almost always differences between the actual costs and the standard costs, and those differences are known as variances, REASON FOR USING STANDARD COSTING Nestle...
Words: 208048 - Pages: 833
...David Tweedie, Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), to the US Chamber of Commerce Event, “‘The Future of Financial Reporting: Convergence or Not?”’ Washington, DC, USA 10 March 2011 I would like to thank the US Chamber of Commerce and its Center for Capital Market Competitiveness for organising today’s event on the future of financial reporting. I have a great affinity with the United States and have always enjoyed my time here. With that in mind, it is not surprising that we at the IASB and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) have worked so successfully in partnership over the past decade. I am delighted to present at the same event as my friend and colleague, Leslie Seidman. This event on the future of financial reporting is timely. Years from now, we will look back on 2011 as a year when the future path of financial reporting was determined. There are two key activities coming to a head this year. First, the IASB and the FASB are now nearing the completion of a nine-year programme to improve International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) and US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and to bring about their convergence. Second, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will make a decision on the use of IFRSs by US domestic companies. The SEC’s decision will be felt well beyond the borders of the United States. Today, more than 100 countries either require or permit the use of IFRSs for listed companies in their domestic...
Words: 4620 - Pages: 19
...Capital Lease December 3, 2012 MEMORANDUM TO: Trucking Company, Inc. FROM: Accountant DATE: December 3rd, 2012 SUBJECT: Benefits of a Capital Lease CC: John Smith, Supervisor In response to your request for more information on the topic of leases, I will explain the different aspects of leases to help you get a better understanding of the topic so that you may make an informed decision on which type of lease is best for your company. Capital Leases A capital lease emulates an installment purchase of an asset. This type of lease transfers the benefits and risks associated with ownership of an asset to the lessee (Schroeder, Clark, & Cathey, 2011). According to ASC 840-10-25 (FASB, 2009) (IAS 17), a lease must meet at least one of the following four criteria to be considered a capital lease: a. Ownership is transferred by the end of the lease agreement. b. There is a chance to purchase at a bargain price. c. The length of the lease is 75% or more of the assets life. d. The sum of the minimum payments, calculated at present value, exceed 90% of the assets fair value. Criteria c and d do not apply if the term of the lease begins in the final 25% of the assets useful life. Two Types of Capital Leases There are two types of capital leases concerning the lessor; direct financing and sales-type leases. For a capital lease to be considered a direct financing or sales-type lease, according to ASC 840-10-25 (FASB, 2009), both of the following must be true...
Words: 1180 - Pages: 5
...“Accounting – the process of identifying, measuring, and communicating economic information to permit informed judgements and decisions by users of the information.” (Warren, Reeve, & Fess, 1999, p. 5). Accounting, as so many other occupations has a rich history behind it, as well as it’s own language. Throughout this rich history it is clear to see that certain organizations relating to the accounting profession have made significant strives to improve the reliability and accuracy of what is reported. These organizations ensure that there is a framework for standards which accountants use in today’s world to speak this common language of business. The organizations, which have provided this framework, are the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Accounting Standards Board, Government Accounting Standards Board, and International Accounting Standards Committee. Each organization plays a major role in defining rules and guidelines to ensure uniformity throughout the profession. One such organization is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The history of this organization dates back to 1887, when the American Association of Public Accountants was formed. In 1916, the American Association was succeeded by the Institute of Public Accountants. In 1957, the name was finally changed to what we now know it as today, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. “The American...
Words: 2905 - Pages: 12
...Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2011 The Effect of Culture on the Implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards Mitchell A. Skotarczyk Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Skotarczyk, Mitchell A., "The Effect of Culture on the Implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards" (2011). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 165. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/165 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact scholarship@cuc.claremont.edu. CLAREMONT McKENNA COLLEGE THE EFFECT OF CULTURE ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL REPORTING STANDARDS SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR MARC MASSOUD AND DEAN GREGORY HESS BY MITCHELL SKOTARCZYK FOR SENIOR THESIS SPRING 2011 2 Table of Contents I. Introduction…………………….……………………………………………………………….4 II. Literature Summary………………………………………...………………...….……………..5 III. IFRS……………………...……………………………………………………..……………11 IV. Carve-outs…………………………………………………………………………………....18 V. Culture and Accounting………………………………………………………………………25 VI. Conclusion………………………………………………………………...…………………30 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………...32 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..37 3 I. Introduction As globalization increases at a blistering pace, more...
Words: 9884 - Pages: 40
...2 Harmonization of Accounting Standards through Internationalization Nikhil Chandra Shil, ACMA (Corresponding Author) Department of Business Administration East West University 43, Mohakhali C/A, Dhaka – 1212, Bangladesh Tel: 9887989(Off.) ext 253, 01819289589 (M) E-mail: nikhilacc@yahoo.com Dr. Bhagaban Das P.G. Department of Business Management, Fakir Mohan University P. O.: Balasore, Pin.: 756019, Orissa, India E-mail: bhagaban_fm@yahoo.com Alok Kumar Pramanik Department of Commerce, Bhatter College P. O.: Dantan, Pin. : 721426, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India E-mail: alokdantan@sify.com Abstract The journey to have a common set of accounting standards started long before to give it a professional shape and essence. And accountants all over the world feel the necessity to shorten the gap among different streams of accounting practices through harmonization. Still, we have a couple of strong variants of accounting practices (say, for example, US GAAP, UK GAAP, IAS etc.) over the world existed and practiced simultaneously. These variants are working as threats towards harmonization of accounting practices. However, the profession has also witnessed some improvements in recent years in the process of global convergence putting some ray of hope. International and even local standard setting bodies have come up with projects of harmonization and in most of the cases became successful. The day is not far away when we will observe that accounting world is controlled and guided...
Words: 5848 - Pages: 24
...wake of high-profile corporate accounting debacles, authorities have started to take action, and new international accounting standards (IAS) defined rules on boards¡¦ responsibilities and imposed penalties (the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) have come into effect. IAS rules will cause a greater need for comparability across various accounting and reporting principles. The European Union has decided that listed companies, a company which has any of its shares listed on a recognized stock market, should use international accounting standards (IAS) for accounting periods beginning since January 2005. Therefore, all EU listed companies that are required to publish consolidated accounts will be required to prepare their accounts in accordance with adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). That will cause a greater need for comparability across various accounting and reporting principles. 1. Change in Financial Reporting Following recent decisions by various jurisdictions to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), more than 90 countries will either require or permit the use of IFRSs during the next five years. Thousands of companies throughout the world will be making a transaction in financial reporting by breaking away from national practices and changing to accounting standards set by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). IASB issued IRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards, which requires an entity to...
Words: 2162 - Pages: 9
...The Journey of Accounting The employment for accountants and auditors is expected to grow by twenty percent between 2008 and 2018, which is much faster than the average for all occupations (“U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics” 5). This shows that accounting is a profession that is very dependable to get a job in. Accounting has been around for ages as it can be traced back to Italy in the Renaissance Era. Accountant’s nature of work is to make sure that business firms run efficiently, public records are kept accurately, and taxes are paid properly and on time (1). Accounting refers to a set of business practices designed to keep careful track of accounts, funds, and transactions between a company and its various stakeholders. The system we use today to track money in business was invented in Italy during the Renaissance. An Italian merchant invented it so that he could easily summarize his results at the end of the day. The system had a simple system of checks and balances to make sure that everything he had recorded was done correctly. The Italian merchant called his system the double-entry accounting system, and it was very simple to understand (Hart 4-5). His name was Luca Pacioli, born in Sansepulcro, Tuscany. Pacioli is known as “The Father of Accounting”. Later on, as trade increased between Europe and the Middle East, business grew beyond what a single owner could even handle. This caused the need for written records so that the business owners could keep up...
Words: 3357 - Pages: 14
...China’s budgetary system Year III Finance and Banking Balea Calin Dobrovolschi Natalia 2012 Content Introduction………………………………………………………………..pg 3 Traditional Budget Accounting…………………………………...……… pg 3 1.Taxonomy of Chinese Accounting……..…………….......................... pg 3 1.1 The Domain of Budget Accounting……….…………...………... .pg 3 1.2 Chinese units……………………………………………………... pg 4 2. Public Financial Management Process……………………..……….. pg 4 Conventional Budget Accounting …………………………………………pg 5 1. Overall and Unit Budgets…………………….…………………….. pg 5 2. Characteristics of the Chinese Budget Accounting System ….….…..pg 6 2.1 Accounting as a Budget Tool…………………….…………….. pg 6 2.2 Characteristics…………….…………………….……………… pg 7 The 1994 Budget Law………………………………..…………………… pg 8 1. Scope…….……………………………………………………….....pg 8 2. Institutional structure…………………………………………….....pg 8 3. Budget policy……………………………………………………….pg 9 3.1 General Policy…………………………………………………. pg 9 3.2 Separate Revenue System……………………………………....pg 9 3.3 Dual Budgeting System………………………………………...pg 10 3.4 Functional Classification of the Budget………………………...pg 10 3.5 Increased Budgetary transparency………………………………pg 11 3.6 Increased Effectiveness in resource utilization………………….pg 11 Further development………………………………………………………...
Words: 4741 - Pages: 19
...decide which products or customers to cut or keep. But ABC can be much more than a superior accounting technique that shows how much money individual products are really making or losing. When ABC is woven into critical management systems, it can serve as a powerful tool for continuously rethinking and dramatically improving not only products and services but also processes and market strategies. To use ABC in that fashion involves managing in a radically different way. And that, of course, means the people in a business—from the CEO to frontline workers—must change radically, too. No wonder so many companies have found activity-based management so much more difficult to implement than they had imagined. Thousands of companies have adopted or explored the feasibility of adopting ABC. However, we estimate that no more than 10% of them now use activity-based management in a significant number of their operations. The other 90% have given up, or their programs are stagnating or floundering. The problem is that managers often do not think of activity-based management as a major organizational-change program. It is. Combing the organization to pinpoint all the useful information about the direct and indirect costs of a product or service is a huge undertaking. So is setting up an information system that can track those cost-contributing activities and present them in formats that employees can use. Educating employees at all levels about the principles and the mechanics of ABC may be...
Words: 6517 - Pages: 27
...Accounting Standards Building international opportunities for Australian business Corporate Law Economic Reform Program Proposals for Reform: Paper No. 1 © Commonwealth of Australia 1997 ISBN 0 642 26110 5 This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Australian Government Publishing Service. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction rights should be directed to the Manager, Commonwealth Information Services, Australian Government Publishing Service, GPO Box 84, Canberra ACT 2601. The Government is seeking comments from interested parties on the detail of the proposals in this paper which should be forwarded to the following address:| First Assistant SecretaryBusiness Law DivisionThe TreasuryParkes PlacePARKES ACT 2600|Telephone:Fax:Email:|02 6263 396002 6263 2882clerp@treasury.gov.au| Copies of this paper are available from the Australian Government Publishing Service and on the Treasury web site (http://www.treasury.gov.au).Enquiries concerning the paper can be made to:Ms Veronique IngramAssistant SecretaryThe TreasuryTelephone: 02 6263 3970| Printed by the Australian Government Publishing Service Table of Contents Page Abbreviations v PART 1: Reform Proposals 1 PART 2: Introduction 9 2.1 Background 9 2.2 Key economic principles 10 PART 3: The Case for Reform 11 3.1 Impetus for reform 11 3.2 What the Government is seeking...
Words: 20265 - Pages: 82
