Richard Murphy’s on fire these days, taking it One World Trust, explaining the power of blogging and giving it to New York CPAs.

Too many in accoun­tancy see their role to be increasing the wealth of the wealthiest in our society… and they’re polit­i­cally cynical enough to pander to their clients and ignore the ethics of their duty to society as a whole.

That’s part of a scathing response to the New York CPAs recom­mending a flat tax, which always will favour those currently paying at the top rate of tax. When it comes to tax advocacy, the profession as a whole is entirely too focused on their bread and butter.

The One World Trust promotes education and research into the changes required within global organ­i­sa­tions in order to achieve the eradi­cation of poverty, injustice and war.

They recently published their Global Account­ability Report 2007, which assesses thirty global organi­za­tions “according to the four dimen­sions of account­ability as defined by the Global Account­ability Framework: trans­parency, partic­i­pation, evalu­ation, and complaint and response mechanisms.”

One of the organi­za­tions they reviewed was the IASB, the inter­na­tional accounting standard-setting body, and they laud the organi­za­tions efforts to engage with stake­holders when setting those standards. The problem is they didn’t test the process. And the process clearly broke down when it came to IFRS 8, which deals with segment reporting.

I find it maddening that One World Trust spouts off about eradi­cating poverty, injustice and war, but would then turn around and commend an organi­zation that went out of its way to avoid creating a standard that is pretty much integral to doing just that. Back to one of Richard Murphy’s original posts about the report (he’s made many since):

In reality the IASB entered into a sham consul­tation on IFRS 8 and never once had intention of changing its proposal. Far from being congrat­u­lated on their procedure the IASB should be condemned for their profound cynicism and contempt for consultation.

Richard is a real leader in the profession and a role model for young people just entering it such as myself. And he under­stands just how much power he has, and how he can wield it to effect positive change:

The way to make sure that mistake is noticed is to get it onto Google so that when someone looks for the One World Trust and Account­ability they’re likely to find these comments as well.

Here’s a little more Google juice for you, Richard.