The Illusion of Comparable Financial Statements

For many years now, the harmonisation of accounting standards has been the goal of national and international accounting standard setters. Since 1973, the goal of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), for example, is to develop a single set of high quality, understandable and enforceable international financial reporting standards (IFRSs). In 2005, the IASB had a major breakthrough when the European Union made the IFRS mandatory for the consolidated financial statements of most European listed, or publicly traded companies. The IASB is also working on a convergence project with the American standard setter, the Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB). The main goal of all these expensive harmonisation efforts is to obtain comparable financial statements. But, when are financial statements comparable? When can you really compare the profit numbers of different companies with peace of mind? More and more, the answer seems to be 'never'.

Jaar van publicatie:2010

Trefwoorden:Comparability, IFRS