President Bush said that discussions among the Heads of State and leaders of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and the Financial Stability Forum will focus on five key objectives:

• understanding the causes of the global crisis,
• reviewing the effectiveness of our responses thus far,
• developing principles for reforming our financial and regulatory systems,
• launching a specific action plan to implement those principles, and
• reaffirming our conviction that free market principles offer the surest path to lasting prosperity.

President Bush said, 'While reforms in the financial sector are essential, the long-term solution to today's problems is sustained economic growth. And the surest path to that growth is free markets and free people.' He specifically cited the need of accounting standards for financial instruments that tell investors their 'true value':

One vital principle of reform is that our nations must make our financial markets more transparent. For example, we should consider improving accounting rules for securities, so that investors around the world can understand the true value of the assets they purchase.

Click to view the full text of President Bush's speech (PDF 67k).

Many tax executives are grappling with the tax accounting considerations of converting from US GAAP to IFRSs but haven't given much thought to other tax-related issues. The webcast will discuss:

• Global tax planning that considers how each foreign jurisdiction has or will adopt IFRSs.
• US-centric complexities of converting to IFRSs, including accounting methods, state tax issues, and potential challenges of reporting earnings and profits of foreign subsidiaries.
• Tax operational considerations, such as professional development, data collection, and software.

Learn what converting to IFRSs entails beyond tax accounting and how your company can smooth the transition. Click here for information about the webcast including a link for registration.

• Mr Price provided an overview of the structure of the summit and 'what some of our objectives are and how we think it will go'.
• Secretary McCormick then reviewed 'a number of those areas where we believe there is sufficient common ground that leaders may be in a position to take some near-term decisions and some near-term actions'.

Among the areas Secretary McCormick touched on were global accounting standards and financial reporting by financial institutions. Click to download the full text of the press briefing (PDF 63k). Here is an excerpt about global accounting standards and financial reporting:

Global accounting standards
Within those four areas that Dan laid out – transparency and accountability, sound regulation, integrity in our financial markets, and international cooperation – there are a number of topics that leaders might touch on. One under the area of transparency and accountability would be global accounting standards. This has been an area that's gotten a lot of attention, and by creating a more aligned and ultimately convergence of global accounting standards, that reduces a huge burden on businesses and ensures a level playing field in terms of how we measure the performance of different businesses.

Financial reporting by financial institutions
There's been a lot of discussion up until this point about the complexity and the opaqueness of some of the products, the financial services products that have been developed. So the role of regulators in enhancing the transparency of those complex products will certainly be an area that I suspect will be touched on, and then the importance of financial reporting, and financial reporting in a way that captures all the activity under a financial institution, both on balance sheet and off balance sheet activity. These are the kinds of themes that we would expect to be touched on under the broader heading of transparency and accountability.

Click here for Comprehensive Credit Crunch Information.

SWFs are special-purpose investment funds owned by a national government to hold, manage, or administer assets to achieve financial objectives. Assets under management by SWFs globally have recently been estimated at $3.6 trillion, and some sources forecast that this could grow to as much as $9 trillion by 2012. Two of the new GAPP principles relate to financial reporting and auditing:

GAPP 11. Principle
An annual report and accompanying financial statements on the SWF's operations and performance should be prepared in a timely fashion and in accordance with recognized international or national accounting standards in a consistent manner.

GAPP 12. Principle
The SWF's operations and financial statements should be audited annually in accordance with recognized international or national auditing standards in a consistent manner.

Click to download Minding the GAPP: Sovereign Wealth, Transparency, and the 'Santiago Principles' (PDF 2,720k).

The letter, which was signed by IASCF Chairman Gerrit Zalm,

• informs the leaders of G20 countries of the role that the IASB is playing in addressing issues emanating from the credit crisis, and
• outlines steps being taken to enhance the public accountability of the IASCF.

The Trustees wrote the letter because issues of accounting standards and the credit crisis and the governance of the IASB may be on the meeting's agenda. Click to download the Trustees' letter to the G20 (PDF 416k). Here is an excerpt:

Most of the world's developed and emerging economies – including nearly all of the G20 members – have made commitments to IFRSs. The IASB has been actively engaged in promoting common standards over the world and in particular in ensuring convergence among major economies. The success so far achieved should not be compromised by actions that would weaken the independence of the standard-setting process....

My fellow Trustees and I understand the extraordinary circumstances facing policymakers today. Our organisation is committed to acting in an urgent and responsible manner to help restore confidence in financial markets. Broad international adoption of IFRSs, combined with the actions described above, means that the IASB is helping to ensure a globally consistent response on financial reporting issues. We urge the G20 nations to support our efforts in a manner that reinforces the IASB's efforts and the organisation's independence.

The letter reviews IOSCO's work toward high quality global securities regulation, noting that one of the four main areas in which IOSCO has focussed its work is 'international financial reporting standards and the accountability of the standard setter to the community of national authorities responsible for reporting by public companies'. Attached to the letter is a Statement by IOSCO Regarding Accounting Standards and Governance. Click to download IOSCO's letter to the G20 (PDF 98k). Below is an excerpt from the statement on accounting standards.

IOSCO also supports the development and use of robust, internationally accepted, and consistently applied financial reporting standards. To achieve such standards, the standard setting process must be accountable and subject to appropriate consultation. In this regard, IOSCO strongly supports International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

The job of developing and maintaining high quality standards that provide transparency to investors relies to a critical extent on independent accounting standards setters, including the IASB. Standard setters will be best able to produce high quality standards if they are able to exercise independent judgment, relying on their skills, experience and due process, without undue political pressure and taking into account the views of all stakeholders. In this light, IOSCO stands ready as a community of capital market authorities to support accounting standards setters in their roles.

At the same time, IOSCO members are those with direct responsibility for protecting investors in our markets. To fulfill this duty, IOSCO members must have a means of ensuring that accounting standard setters are working in the best interests of investors. IFRS is being used in more and more jurisdictions around the world. It is critical for securities regulators that allow or require the use of IFRS in their jurisdictions (or are considering doing so) to maintain a balance between protecting the independence and integrity of the IASB as the standard setter for IFRS, while ensuring that the IASB is accountable for producing standards in the best interests of investors.

ICGN members are largely institutional investors who collectively represent funds under management in excess of US$15 trillion. The ICGN statement expressly rejects any political interference in setting accounting standards:

Accounting standards: There must be no political interference in setting accounting standards. The fair value approach has been blamed for encouraging pro-cyclicality. Investors generally support fair value that delivers a picture of what is actually happening. There are some challenges to address, but abandoning this approach would damage confidence in financial reporting. It is important to recognise that there is a difference between fair value used for reporting and fair value used to measure the need for regulatory capital. Accounting standards also need to be clearer about when off-balance sheet business should be reported.

Click to view the Public Statement on the Global Financial Crisis (PDF 62k).