The Annual AICPA National SEC/PCAOB Conference in Washington, DC

• Date: 01 May 2015
• Author: Donald A. Walker
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22043
• Published date: 01 May 2015

127

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22043

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Donald A. Walker Jr.

The Annual AICPA National SEC/PCAOB

Conference in Washington, DC

SEC MATTERS

In the second week of December

2014, the American Institute of

Certified Public Accountants

(AICPA) sponsored its annual

Securities and Exchange Com-

mission (SEC)/Public Company

Accounting Oversight Board

(PCAOB) conference. Key

speakers included the new chief

accountant of the SEC, James

Schnurr, the chairman of the

Financial Accounting Stan-

dards Board (FASB), Russell

Golden, and the chairman of the

PCAOB, James Doty. The con-

ference immediately focused on

issues of accounting and auditing

in a global economy with global

investing markets. Some high-

lights of the conference follow.

International Financial

Reporting

Chief Accountant Schnurr

addressed a key concern of

investors and analysts, as well

as corporate reporting execu-

tives; the lack of transparency

and comparability resulting

from some public companies

reporting under U.S. generally

accepted accounting principles

(GAAP) and some under Inter-

national Financial Reporting

Standards (IFRS). Clarified and

emphasized in a later speech by

FASB Chairman Golden, Mr.

Schnurr turned the conversa-

tion from a convergence focus

to a disclosure and compara-

bility focus. His discussion of

the problem of permitting U.S.

companies to report using IFRS

stated that U.S. constituents give

primacy to U.S. GAAP, and that

a way to improve transparency

and comparability might be

found by enabling companies to

provide IFRS financial informa-

tion in some form in addition to

U.S. GAAP financial statements.

Mr. Schnurr indicated that his

staff was studying how and in

what form a reporting company

might be permitted to include

that information in its periodic

reports, as well as the level of

assurances (e.g., audit, review,

and what, if any, kind of report

and related consent or assent to

use), which might be required

as a condition of inclusion.

Although under current SEC

rules IFRS-based information

would be considered non-GAAP

financial information and subject

to disclosure requirements for

such measures, Mr. Schnurr sug-

gested that other ways of think-

ing about IFRS-based informa-

tion might be appropriate.

In considering what

IFRS-based information U.S.

reporting companies might

include in their U.S. filings, here

are a few possibilities:

• On what entity to provide

information:

Information about non-

U.S. segments

Information about

foreign product lines

• On what period or periods

to provide information:

Annual

Quarter or half year or

other foreign reporting

periods used

What, if any, compa-

rable periods

• How much information to

provide:

Key performance indi-

cators and/or balance

sheet amounts

Selected financial data

(as in Item 301 of Regu-

lation S-K)

Summary financial

information (as in

Item 302 of Regulation

S-K)

Discussion of key

amounts in Manage-

ment’s Discussion and

Analysis

Full financial statements