Accountants’ Group Calls For Single Set Of International Rules

Accountants’ Group Calls For Single Set Of International Rules - 7/23/2009

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Accountants’ Group Calls For Single Set Of International Rules
Jennifer Ryan

Bloomberg. July 23, 2009
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EXCERPT: The International Federation of Accountants will push for regulators around the world to agree to adopt a single set of bookkeeping rules at a conference in London this week. The group, a global industry body, will hold an accounting summit in London today and tomorrow to identify a common response to the credit meltdown that plunged the world economy into a recession. Points of agreement will be submitted to the Group of 20 nations before its September meeting in Pittsburgh. The IAFC will call for greater transparency in government financial reporting and for smaller, private companies to be shielded from excessive regulatory burdens as standards are tightened. It said it will also push for accountants to have a greater say at senior levels of companies to help better evaluate the risk of proposed transactions. “We want to see a single set of high-quality standards nationally and globally,” Robert Bunting, president of the IFAC, said in an interview in London yesterday. “The objective is to create a level playing field.” Bunting said an obstacle to international agreement is a trend toward accounting rules becoming “politicized.” The IFAC objects to the pressure applied by lawmakers that resulted in the U.S.’s revision in April of “fair-value” accounting rules to give banks more flexibility. The London-based International Accounting Standards Board is also proposing rules to streamline the reporting of complex financial instruments. “They ended up with the right answer, but it gives encouragement to governments to intervene anytime they don’t like the answer,” Bunting said. “What we would like to see is that standard setting is done by standard setters; the process shouldn’t be politicized.”

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