When a supporter of IFRS thinks about the SEC and how they've managed to successfully stall on making anything that closely resembles a decision about the future of financial reporting in the United States, it probably causes (s)he to fly into a rage that can only be abated by watching a live puppy cam for 10 straight minutes.
Yes, the SEC hasn't made up its mind on what to do about IFRS and judging by acting SEC Chief Accountant Paul Beswick's speech at the Financial Reporting Issues Conference yesterday, the Commission isn't showing signs of deciding on their indecision any time soon:
[Beswick] reviewed the results of the SEC’s staff reports on IFRS, including the final report which outlined many of the problems with IFRS. So far, the SEC commissioners for whom the reports were prepared have not yet made any formal decision about whether to move forward with incorporating IFRS. “When thinking about sufficient development of IFRS, some areas that the staff focused on were the comprehensiveness of IFRS, the auditability and enforceability and then the comparability among jurisdictions,” said Beswick. “One of the things that both preparers and investors told us was if the information isn’t comparable across jurisdictions, is it really worth it making this effort to go to a single set of standards?”
Statements like these can only drive people like SIr David Tweedie, Hans Hoogervorst, and Michel Barnier further into madness; however, they may be able to take some solace in the fact that this quixotic exercise really isn't in the stars:
[Beswick] noted that the final staff report was issued on Friday, July 13. “We acknowledge that we issued a report on Friday the 13th,” said Beswick.
That may be tough to swallow, but you can't fight these sorts of things.
SEC Still Has Reservations about IFRS [AT]
