THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL REPORTING STANDARDS IN THE UNITED STATES: CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CRITICAL QUESTION

Abstract

In the present article a subject matter that has attracted great interest over the recent decades is discussed. The critical question of the likelihood of adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards in the United States has raised a lot of debates around the world. The problem has been the focus of long-lasting and profound deliberations among both scientific and professional community.Our research found out that the strategic goal of reaching one single set of global accounting standards through the project of convergence developed by the most influential Boards in the world – the International Accounting Standards Board located in London with second headquarters in Tokyo, and the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board has not been achieved. It is appropriate to emphasize that the realisation of the convergence project began in 2002 as a result of the Norwalk agreement achieved in September 2002, Norwalk, Connecticut, USA. However, it is increasingly recognized that the era of convergence is coming to an end.Prominent scholars argue that the strategic goal turned out to be neither practical nor achievable in the foreseeable future. For the time being the authorized American institutions do not intend to fully adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards as issued by the IASB into the U.S. financial reporting system. Moreover the authoritative organizations in the United States attempt to continue keeping in line with specifics of the U.S. business environment. It is assumed that the Securities and Exchange Commission will never perhaps risk causing a political storm by yielding the control on its accounting to an institution outside the USA.An essential reason that causes inconveniences in the implementation of the IASB’s accounting standards and the principles is that the accounting standards interact in different ways with national laws, social and ethic codes, domestic fiscal rules and guidelines, and that is unavoidable. However, in each state and jurisdiction the interaction has its essentials and specifics. Complications may arise out of the local tradition, culture and historical continuity in performing accounting as a practice as well as by the legal doctrine and the degree of their interrelation. No less important are the essence and peculiarities of the national legal and accounting system, the extent of cultural impacts on the contemporary development of accounting as well as the principles on the basis of which the systems of state authority are established, interact and function.