Donna L. Street

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are principles-based accounting standards that provide less prescriptive, interpretive and implementation guidance than do some national standards. Thus, considerable judgement in the application of IFRS is often required. We suggest a three-step approach to teaching IFRS judgements (concepts, to principles/rules, to the judgements required in the application of those rules), and provide accounting educators with guidance and resources that will help them create and enhance students' awareness of the importance of making professional judgements in the application of IFRS. We consider both pervasive issues, such as the going concern assumption, materiality and related disclosures, and issues encountered in the application of most IFRSs, such as presentation and disclosure, classification, recognition/de-recognition, and measurement. We illustrate past judgements with examples from corporate annual reports, regulatory enforcement decisions published by the ESMA, and other sources for classroom use.

The EU's adoption of IFRS, combined with the SEC's removal of the US GAAP reconciliation requirement for non‐US registrants reporting under IFRS, signifies a major shift towards the acceptance of global standards. Based on 20‐F reconciliations provided by the population of US listed European companies filing IFRS‐based statements with the SEC in 2005, we examine whether ‘European’ and US GAAP measures of income and equity converged under IFRS. We find that during the period immediately preceding IFRS, for our sample companies, European and US GAAP measures are generally comparable in respect of income and equity. However, as an exception to the latter, we find that UK GAAP yielded significantly lower measures of equity than US GAAP For companies adopting IFRS for the first time in 2005, we find a significant gap between IFRS and US GAAP measures of income, thereby, signifying de facto divergence from US GAAP in regard to income determination. Furthermore, we find that, following IFRS adoption, significant differences with US GAAP equity persisted for companies that previously reported using UK GAAP. Our findings, thus, support critics’ claims that standard‐setters, most notably the IASB and FASB, have more work to do to achieve a sufficient degree of convergence between IFRS and US GAAP that will convince the SEC to require US companies to use IFRS.

This paper presents the pros and cons of the use of IFRS by US companies. The quest for one set of high‐quality accounting standards recognised globally is clearly the ideal goal. However, before making a decision on the use of IFRS in the United States (US), the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) should develop a blueprint to ensure that prerequisites for achieving a true global standard are satisfied and that convergence will continue. An ‘improve and then adopt’ approach appears to represent the best way forward for the US.

In April 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the Commission's plan to seek comments on its intension to allow foreign private issuers a choice between International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Even more significant, the Commission announced that it may, at some point in the future, consider allowing a choice between U.S. GAAP and IFRS for U.S.-headquartered issuers. In this commentary, we pose questions/issues to be carefully considered within the context of making these decisions. These include, but are not limited to, a consideration of whether eliminating the reconciliation could stall convergence efforts and/or minimize the joint efforts of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to improve problem areas for current financial reporting. We encourage academics to draw upon their research and expertise and engage in the discussion and debate by providing relevant comment letters to the SEC.