IFRS and XBRL: CPA's – listen up

• Tweet

• Tweet

The last few hours I’ve seen people on Twitter bitching and moaning about two things:

1. XBRL analysis tools are expensive – ie $4,800 per annum
2. IFRS impact on taxes

Sheesh.

As one of the XBRL for Dummies editors I feel justified in saying that it is the best thing that’s happened in financial reporting for a long time. It makes comparative analysis relatively easy and, with a bit of Excel tag magic a way for analyzing professionals to enter into the wonderful world of broad based benchmarking. That’s just for starters. Those of us who analyze quarterly results will have a much easier time of comparing apples with apples under the XBRL regime.

I was gobsmacked to see that the US IRS is ruminating over the effect IFRS will have on tax. Are these people brain dead? IFRS is about reporting. Tax code is totally different. Tax practitioners will continue to report to the IRS in accordance with the US tax code. So where’s the problem? This person sort of gets it.

As seems often these days, our US cousins are not casting their eyes away from their own shores. That’s a real pity because I am finding there are plenty of synergies between US/Canadian and UK professionals – for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. We should be working together yet that seems a dim and distant hope for reasons I cannot fathom. Why? I don’t know. I can say that when I’ve reached out to the likes of Tom Hood, Bill Sheridan and Rick Telberg, they’ve been more than willing to share experience. So what’s wrong with the rest of you? On both sides of the Big Pond.

EU went through IFRS many years ago. There’s a stack of literature about adoption and its impact. It’s not hard to find via Google (no – get the link for yourself) and even less difficult to digest. Do I need to say more? As for XBRL – I’m equally gobsmacked. OK – so the SEC recommended ‘tool’ costs $4.8K. Is that too much to ask when you think of the power that might give you? One assignment alone should make it pay for itself. If that makes you balk then why not go code your own? And does everyone believe the SEC has the lock on XBRL analysis tools?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Move Over GAAP, Preparation Begins Now for Move to New International Financial Reporting Standards (newswire.ca)
• Accounting Information Systems – XBRL Research Paper (slideshare.net)
• Public Sector Enterprises required to use IFRSs (newswire.ca)

Tagged as: IFRS, XBRL