Summarizing the IFRS literature: the never-ending journey

On the University of Oxford business law blog, I came across a summary of a recent review of academic literature about IFRS adoption. Here’s the synopsis provided there: “If we had to summarize the development of the IFRS literature, the majority of early studies paint IFRS as bringing significant benefits to adopting firms and countries…

IFRS 15 – how much should investors worry?

“Investors Worry Revenue Rules Will Allow Earnings Manipulation” announces a recent article on the Bloomberg BNA website. Here are some extracts from the article, written by Steve Burkholder: Some investors worry that revenue accounting rules that public companies must begin using in January will yield inconsistent reporting and allow earnings manipulation, according to Bloomberg BNA…

It’s closely related, no matter how it looks!

A European example of challenges in applying one of the more complex aspects of IAS 39 Here’s another of the issues arising from extracts of enforcement decisions issued in the past by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) (for more background see here); this is from their 19th edition: “The entity has entered into several…

Deferred tax – unloved and unsound?

Should deferred tax be abandoned, basically? It’s not uncommon of course to come across complaints that the concepts underlying deferred tax balances are hard to follow, that the resulting assets and liabilities don’t mean much to users, and so forth. I suppose I’ve always taken a fairly standard view towards that issue, as I put…

The Accountant – film as a mirror of reality (no, not really…)

I wouldn’t ever have watched Ben Affleck’s film The Accountant… …except that I thought it might provide some material for a blog post (given my self-imposed pace of a new 800-word update every five days, I’m always looking for material). After all, as has been observed in the past, accountants are only minimally represented in Hollywood…

Reducing the regulatory burden – gimme your core, then gimme more!

We recently touched on CSA Consultation Paper 51-404 Considerations for Reducing Regulatory Burden for Non-Investment Fund Reporting Issuers, seeking “comments on potential options for reducing regulatory burden for non-investment fund reporting issuers in the public markets.” I noted before that the very choice of the term “reducing regulatory burden” suggests a predisposition to find burdensome things that can…