FASB chairman discusses post-convergence priorities

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09 Dec 2014

Russell Golden, the Chairman of the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), gave a speech at this year's American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments on the FASB's post-convergence project agenda.

Mr Golden stressed that the FASB's first priority is to improve US GAAP; he spoke about the FASB's simplification initiative and reducing complexity within US GAAP. He also admitted the need for a complete conceptual framework to bridge gaps and minimise inconsistencies. These priorities have helped align some areas of US GAAP and IFRS (i.e., inventory balance sheets, development stage enterprises, and extraordinary items), although sometimes the simplification of US GAAP has resulted in differing conclusions than those of the IASB (i.e., leases, impairment, classification and measurement, and insurance).

On the subject of international cooperation, Mr Golden said:

I believe that continuing to work toward the development of more comparable global accounting standards is an important way to help reduce complexity. That’s why we continue to collaborate and cooperate with the IASB and national standards setters with an eye toward agreeing on and adopting standards that either are converged or that have the fewest possible differences.

The full text of Mr Golden's speech is available on the FASB's website.

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