In a paper released yesterday, the heads of the big four accounting firms – Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG – plus the next two biggest firms, Grant Thornton and BDO International, said they have found ‘overwhelming support’ for a change to a single, global set of high-quality accounting standards.
‘It is our view that the move toward global adoption of IFRS as promulgated by the IASB (International Accounting Standards Board) must be continued, along with the global convergence of audit and independence standards," the CEOs said in the paper.
More than 100 countries have already adopted or announced intentions to adopt IFRS, which is viewed as more principle-based and more concise that the US GAAP, which relies on specifically outlined rules, Reuters reports.
However, the accounting chiefs said the change to IFRS would be a long process. James Quigley, Deloitte's global chief executive, told Reuters it would be a very significant change, taking ‘multiple years’. He also urged the structure and funding mechanism of the IASB be shored up.
Further reading:
Comments
Have your say on this article