The IFRS Convergence Quandary

One thing most everyone in the financial reporting community can agree on is the need for a single set of high-quality globally accepted accounting standards.

The question now is, How do we get there?

Over the past decade, the world's accounting standards-setters have been working on "converging" local and global accounting standards. Central to these efforts has been the work of the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to converge U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (U.S. GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Last year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued for comment its "IFRS road map" that proposes an eventual adoption of IFRS for U.S. public companies beginning in 2014. The SEC has received a number of comment letters on its road map, with a variety of views expressed. Some have argued that there is no need to transition U.S. public companies to IFRS because convergence eventually will result in the two sets of standards (U.S. GAAP and IFRS) being the same.

But in order to understand the debate, we should first understand what convergence is and what it isn't.

Let's start with what convergence is. Convergence is designed to bring U.S. GAAP and IFRS closer together. The focus is on having similar general principles. Many have misinterpreted convergence as meaning the development of the same or "identical" standards. The reality is that convergence never really contemplated "identical" standards.

In fact, the FASB and IASB have acknowledged that doing so is too difficult to accomplish. This is evident in the boards' recently issued business combinations standards that contain differences in certain requirements. And, based on the boards' current thinking on topics such as consolidations and leasing, differences likely will exist in future converged standards.

It's also important to keep in mind that the convergence efforts were conceived at a time when IFRS was in need of improvement and not used by many companies. Indeed, there was doubt about whether IFRS would ever be globally accepted. If we fast-forward to today, that doubt has been erased.

First, the quality of IFRS has increased significantly, which has been acknowledged by many, including the SEC. Also, since 2005, when European companies were required to use IFRS, thousands of companies have been using IFRS. By 2011, every major capital market (except the U.S.) and just about every jurisdiction around the globe will be using IFRS as a basis of financial reporting.

So why is a single set of accounting standards so important?

To answer this question, you only have to look at the recent events surrounding the current financial crisis. What historically have been seemingly harmless differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS now are the source of much politicization.

Take, for example, the issue of when companies can change the classification of financial assets, which in turn impacts the measurement of these items. Prior to last year, the "technical differences" on classification between U.S. GAAP and IFRS were never considered a significant issue in practice. However, the financial crisis put the IASB under tremendous pressure to conform IFRS to arguably a "lesser-quality" answer under U.S. GAAP. This is only one example of literally hundreds of differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS that likely will never be addressed by convergence.

Another area that often gets left out of the convergence discussion is the interpretations of standards. There's been little or no effort by standards-setters to "converge" interpretations, even on the converged standards. In fact, divergence is often created when interpretive guidance is issued by one body but not the other.

While the convergence efforts have been important over the years, it is clear that they will not get us to where we need to be: a single set of standards. Besides creating a level playing field for companies around the globe, having a single set of standards will eliminate accounting arbitrage between U.S. GAAP and IFRS and lessen the potential for political interference in the standards-setting process.

Here's the bottom line: Without future SEC rule-making that adopts IFRS, we will most likely never reach a point at which there is a single set of high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards.