Scots tout principles in the Big Apple

The Scotsman: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland will tell high-powered US financiers at a conference in New York that individual judgment should play a bigger role than strict adherence to a rule book. Ah, this old classic. Once again the rules-based US system is coming under attack by external sources, this time fromContinue reading “Scots tout principles in the Big Apple”

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”