Don’t you just love it when someone who has something to sell sets up a scaremongering strawman argument? this from IT Business Edge: Will IFRS be worse than Sarbanes-Oxley? The piece is written by a shill spokesperson for Candela Solutions, an American CPA (equivalent to UK CA) firm which says about itself:
Candela Solutions is a public accounting firm delivering governance, internal auditing, and technology services, based on a strong understanding of client needs and uncompromising excellence.
Right. It tries to pretend that the requirements under IFRS are way more onerous than they are under US-GAAP. No they’re not. It represents a reformatting of the data that US companies already hold. How do I know? Because I worked for a US company reporting in both US-GAAP and what was the old IAS prepared under SSAP. (Yes, I’m THAT old).
Fortunately, at least one commenter has corrected the errors in the story.
The more important point is that any time change bring concern but it not need bring fear, uncertainty and doubt. There is no question that a switch to IFRS reporting will require a change of mindset for many CPAs but it is about time. The US has a continuing litany of fraud style cases among its publicly reported businesses. Do we see the same in the UK? Moving swiftly on.
