财务管理专业外文翻译--国际财务报告准则：未来之路.docVIP

International Financial Reporting Standards: The Road Ahead By Langmead, Joseph M,Soroosh, JalalPublication: The CPA Journal Date: Sunday, March 1 2009 In December 2007, the SEC eliminated the requirement to provide U.S. GAAP information for many foreign company filers that use International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The SEC has also published a proposed rule for U.S. companies to start preparing their financial statements using IFRS. IFRS is effectively in the process of replacing U.S. GAAP in the U.S. capital markets - it has already replaced GAAP for non-U.S. companies listed in domestic markets, and will soon replace GAAP for U.S. public companies. These rapid developments will require CPAs to retool and learn more about IFRS quickly. Doing so requires an appreciation of why IFRS is of such immediate interest to U.S. businesses and practitioners, a familiarity with the history and background of IFRS. and an understanding of the key similarities and differences between IFRS and U.S. GAAP. This primer on IFRS concludes with some practical considerations for a company converting U.S. GAAP to IFRS. Background Why is IFRS back in the news? The FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have committed repeatedly - beginning with the Norwalk Agreement of 2002 - to the convergence of the two bodies of standards on an aggressive timetable. U.S. accountants might have expected that all they needed to do was keep up with the changes to U.S. standards, which, in good time, would be the same as IFRS. If one wanted to keep up with the progress of the convergence effort, one could easily access SEC filings for some non-U.S. registrants using IFRS and review the required reconciliations to U.S. GAAP as convergence matured and the differences gradually disappeared. A passive approach may no longer be realistic. According to a December 2007 rule change by the SEC, many non-U.S. filers who use IFRS are no longer required to prepare reconciliations