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Private Company CFOs Prefer FASB as Standard Setter by Large Margin 28 million private U.S. companies that will be impacted June 6, 2011 (SmartPros) A national survey of private company CFOs finds that the majority (59%) prefer the FASB as their accounting standard setter. The remainder of the CFOs were split between adoption of IFRS for SMEs (22%) and a separate standard setter for private companies (18%). The responses from CFOs at public companies were similar. “The preference for the FASB as a standard setter was very pronounced,” notes John Hepp, a partner in Grant Thornton LLP’s Accounting Principles Group, “but it was not an overall rejection of separate GAAP for private companies. A majority of respondents (51%) favors permitting IFRS for SMEs as an option, even though only 22% favor adoption of IFRS for SMEs.”
CFOs at pubic companies also preferred the FASB as a standard setter over the IASB by similar margins.
The Blue Ribbon Panel report on Private Company Accounting issued in January of 2011 recommended that the Financial Accounting Foundation “create a separate accounting standards board . . . with the ultimate standard-setting authority to determine and set exceptions and modifications in [generally accepted accounting principles] for private companies.” The Blue Ribbon Commission specifically rejected adoption of IFRS for SMEs, the international accounting standards for private entities issued in July of 2009.
“The Blue Ribbon Panel rejected an IFRS-based answer because there has not been a clear direction from the SEC on when public companies in the U.S. will move towards IFRS,” said Meredith Vogel, Grant Thornton Audit senior manager and a staff member supporting the Blue Ribbon Panel.
These results and additional findings on differences between how CFOs at private and public companies perceive the objective of financial reporting and the users of financial statements are discussed further in the recently released Grant Thornton white paper Who should set financial reporting standards for private companies? Download the paper at www.GrantThornton.com/PCreporting.
Grant Thornton LLP conducted the biannual national survey from March 22 through April 6, 2011, with 318 U.S. CFOs and senior comptrollers participating. For more information about the survey, please go to www.GrantThornton.com/cfosurvey.
* Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding. |
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