FASB is coming out with some tough new standards relating to defined benefit pensions that is expected to result in significant new liabilities (or increases to existing ones) for companies that had been accounting for their pensions under the more lax requirements of the old standard. Defined benefit pension plans are definitely the more complicatedContinue reading “Pension brouhaha south of the border”
Category Archives: Accounting Standards
Global ethics and international accounting standards
The Publish What You Pay campaign is where international politics, financial reporting, and the developing world intersect. The campaign seeks to force companies in extractive industries (such as oil and gas) to make public their payments to governments in the developing world. It began in 1999 with an “exposé of the apparent complicity of theContinue reading “Global ethics and international accounting standards”
No new international accounting standards effective before 2009
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has announced they won’t be issuing any new standards or major amendments to existing standards with effective dates before January 1st, 2009, in order to give companies reporting under the standards a bit of a breather to get their house in order. Word around the accountant blogosphere has beenContinue reading “No new international accounting standards effective before 2009”
More discussion of rules versus principles
Dennis over at AccMan Pro has commented on the difference between rules-based US GAAP and international principles-based IFRS, and his thoughts echo mine: Recent commentary has suggested the idea of convergence between US GAAP and IFRS won’t happen until hell freezes over. I’ve long held the view that the rules based US GAAP system isContinue reading “More discussion of rules versus principles”
Lease accounting to get overhaul
Apparently FASB is going to overhaul the US GAAP for leases. I’m not sure what exactly is going to be changed, or why it needs changing, but it’ll be interesting to see. Of course, Canadian standards are moving towards harmonization with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), so we might not see Canada following the USContinue reading “Lease accounting to get overhaul”