T he essential elements of the SEC’s proposed road map for adoption ofInternational Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by U.S. public companies were reaffirmed by the current members of the SEC earlier this year, and the accounting community continues to consider their implications. Anticipation ofsuch a significant change has led accoun- tants to a range of responses, from pas- sive watchfulness to active preparation and training. The originally proposed road map, issued for comment on November 14, 2008, identified 2014 as the proposed date for the largest U.S. public companies to convert to IFRS, with smaller public companies converting over the two ensu- ing years. A defined group of companies would be permitted to convert earlier than 2014, and the whole conversion process would be subject to satisfactory progress on convergence (of U.S. GAAP and IFRS) and a number of other defined conditions by 2011. While the change of administra- tion in Washington has caused some observers to speculate about a loss ofmomentum, the SEC’s February 2010 reaf- firmation, along with recent statements by the current chairman and chief accountant, keeps the road map essentially on trackwhile moving the proposed adoption date from 2014 to 2015. This article considers the results of a recent survey of CPAs in public practice to evaluate their opinions about IFRS and the value of IFRS for U.S. companies. IFRS and the SEC Recognizing the global nature of modern financial and capital markets, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and its U.S. counterpart, FASB, made a commitment to work together to minimiz e and, where possible , eliminate dif- ferences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS. This commitment toward convergence was formalized in 2002 and has since been renewed. Many standards on both sides have been modified to reduce such differences, several new or replacement standards have been developed jointly, and several more are in process. Significant differences remain and will not likely be eliminated in the immedi- ate future, but the convergence process has largely been seen as successful. The SEC’s 2008 road map is predicat- ed on continued progress in the conver- gence process but does not depend on com- plete convergence before U.S. companies become required to adopt IFRS. Its over- riding concern is a single set of high- A C C O U N T I N G & A U D I T I N G international accounting AUGUST 2010 / THE CPA JOURNAL 30 By Joseph M. Langmead andJalal Soroosh Mapping the Road to IFRS: A Survey of CPAs in Public Practice
