We have posted an Excerpt from the FAF/FASB Annual Report for 2000 relating to the formation of the IASB.

Senate confirmation is required. A key task facing the next SEC chairman is follow-up on the SEC's Concepts Release on the use of International Accounting Standards in the SEC filings.

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The goal: a single set of high quality accounting standards supported by national bodies around the world. IASB Press Release (25k PDF).

They also began work on Batch 6, soon to be exposed for public comment.

Other listed companies may use IAS or US GAAP, as well as Austrian GAAP.

Beresford, writing in Accountancy Age, is concerned about the trend, particularly in the US, to have a "detailed accounting rule for everything, no matter how narrow or obscure the issue.... Accountants should encourage the new IASB to emphasise a principles-based approach. Further, as part of the commitment to convergence, it is time for the FASB and SEC to change their behaviour and become more like the rest of the world."

This version includes a quarterly summary of IASB news plus Asia-Pacific country updates.

The Federation des Experts Comptables Europeens (FEE), which represents the accounting profession in Europe, points out that compliance with the existing EC Accounting Directives would continue to be required. FEE is concerned that there are incompatibilities between the Directives and IAS and sees an "urgent need for modernisation of the Directives". FEE has published a Discussion Paper on the Modernisation of the Directives (PDF, 114 kb). The paper discusses both the strategic and technical issues that are at stake and gives the advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches for modernisation. FEE's preferred solution would be to exempt listed companies that apply IAS from the EC Accounting Directives. Click for FEE Press Release.

It is a challenge born less out of crisis and more out of evolutionary progress.... As regulators around the world continue the process of developing a set of international accounting standards, some would like the US to embrace standards that would be of higher quality than those currently used in many countries but less rigorous than US GAAP. That would be a mistake.