Click here for Part One of this Three-Part Series.
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False Claim #2: A move to IFRS would restore the public trust in accounting standards.
I'm going to present three examples – one from 2007 and two from 2011 – that directly challenge this claim.
The 2007 case is one of my pet peeves. It has to do with the revisions to IAS 23, Borrowing Costs, ostensibly to further convergence of US GAAP and IFRS. I say "ostensibly" because there are still significant differences between IFRS and its U.S. GAAP counterpart. The bottom line is that IFRS rules still give management more latitude to manage earnings than the corresponding U.S. guidance.
Be that as it may, I'm am very confident that if you were trained in accounting or finance, one of the basic principles you were taught is that asset acquisition decisions are separate from the decision of how to finance them. And, prior to the 2007 revisions to IAS 23, that was the IASB's principled position as well.
Under IAS 23, prior to the 2007 amendments, two accounting treatments were permitted for self-constructed assets: the treatment designated as the "benchmark" treatment was to expense borrowing costs; but the "allowed alternative" permitted rules-based capitalization: a senseless alternative, unless one values opportunities to manipulate earnings.
Incredibly, the IASB in 2007, the supposed principles-based system of accounting, blithely rejected the sound and long-ago-established principles it had embraced earlier, by requiring the capitalization of interest on self-constructed assets. In other words, it threw out the principles-based benchmark and now permits only the management-friendly erstwhile allowed alternative. There can be no basis, other than politics, for this change, but that did not seem to bother all but two of the IASB's members. This is what was stated in the basis for conclusions of the revised standard:
- Eliminating a difference between IFRS and GAAP is always progress. (In other words, two wrongs can make a right.)
- Allowing only one method will enhance comparability. (This is not true, because companies with different financing policies will generate non-comparable results from business operations. It is more accurate to state the irony that the IASB's rules-based standard actually defeats comparability since initial asset values and subsequent depreciation charges will depend on the timing and type of financing employed.)
- It will improve financial reporting (for reasons unstated).
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This reason is so ludicrous and outrageous that I have to quote it verbatim:
"The Board further noted that both IAS 23 and SFAS 34 Capitalization of Interest Cost were developed some years ago. Consequently, neither set of specific provisions may be regarded as being of a clearly higher quality than the other. [Nonsensical] Therefore, the Board concluded that it should not spend time and resources considering aspects of IAS 23 beyond the choice between capitalisation and immediate recognition as an expense." [bold italics supplied]
I chose this example because it demonstrates that the IASB cannot be trusted to adhere to its own due process policies, or to provide a legitimate basis for conclusions. Yes, the FASB is also susceptible to pressure, but the way that the IASB went about revision to IAS 23 was untrustworthy and made a mockery of its own "due process" policies.
There can be little question that big-issuer interests drove the revisions to IAS 23; both investors and smaller issuers were cast aside without so much as a nod to the real reasons for the adoption of a rules-based accounting standard. Any issuers that formerly elected the benchmark treatment were forced to change their accounting to a lower quality and costlier-to-implement alternative. The unavoidable conclusion is that the IASB caused significant wealth destruction, and it continues today under the guise of "convergence" of accounting for borrowing costs, even though it has no hope of enhancing comparability.
The second example is the IASB's revisions to its pension accounting standards, which incidentally were not undertaken as part of any convergence project – and I shudder to think that the FASB might actually be called upon to incorporate these changes into U.S. GAAP. I wrote a rather lengthy description of the revisions to IAS 19, Employee Benefits, in my blog this past October, and the bottom line is the same as for the first example: the revisions foster more income smoothing and earnings management; they indicate that the IASB cannot be trusted to tell the truth or to put investors' priorities first. Again, and just a few months ago, to accommodate special interests, the IASB shows its willingness to promulgate accounting standards that surely result in shareholder value destruction.
My third example is the secret letter sent by Mr. Hoogervorst to the European Securities and Markets Authority this past August, in which he expressed concern at the inappropriately high valuations produced by specific EU banks on their holdings of Greek sovereign bonds classified as 'available for sale.' Setting aside the accounting implications of that letter, and there are many, the subsequent revelation that the letter was kept secret – until the IASB was forced to make it public once news of its existence was leaked to the Financial Times – raises trust issues that can be directly traced to the current head of the IASB.
Hans Hoogervorst, as a former regulator, surely knew that sunlight would have been the best disinfectant, yet he chose secrecy. The numbers in financial statements are cyphers, and pronouncements of accounting standards are the principal means by which they are de-encrypted. If one is not concerned that investors fully understand the basis under which the financial statements were prepared, then one might have no qualms about withholding part of the de-encryption key. Evidently, the IASB wanted to be certain that European regulators fully understood the financial statements, and for the regulators to have that knowledge without letting investors in on the secret. It leaves a strong impression, to say the least, that EU regulators are currently the IASB's primary constituency.
False Claim #3: U.S. GAAP is not superior to IFRS
Mr. Hoogervorst stated that quality of the actual accounting standards should be the most important consideration for the SEC as it formulates its IFRS policies, but he is "not convinced by the arguments that one set of standards is clearly superior to the other."
Moreover, he stated that "academic studies have concluded that both IFRSs and US GAAP are high quality standards." A vaguely-worded footnote to that statement reads as follows:
American Accounting Association Financial Accounting Standards Committee, 2008 ‐ Karim Jamal
That footnote leads me to believe that Mr. Hoogervorst was referring to a paper published in Accounting Horizons [Vol. 22, No. 2, 2008, pp. 241-248] by the AAA's Financial Accounting Standards Committee.
Let's take a closer look at that paper. That committee did indeed cite evidence from academic research that IFRS and U.S. GAAP were substantially similar; but, crucially, it added that it had no basis to state that either set of standards were "high quality." Furthermore, that same committee stated in a subsequent comment letter to the SEC that high quality depends on a number of factors that are specific to each environment: legal systems, securities enforcement, taxation and incentives of preparers, for example.
Taken as a whole, the paper from which Mr. Hoogervorst took one supportive nugget out of context clearly would not provide academic support for IFRS adoption in the U.S. Rather, I took the committee's remarks as an endorsement of a standard setting system that supported where standard setters were in competition with each other. And indeed, in the comment letter I mentioned, the Committee stated:
[A]cademic research indicates that using a single set of uniform accounting standards will not lead to the production of comparable and consistent financial reports that are desirable to regulators [citation omitted]. The promise that adoption of IFRS will deliver comparability and consistency in accounting reports is false and misleading. [bolding and italics supplied]
There are two more quick points I want to make about what academic research has to say about the relative merits of IFRS versus GAAP. In the same issue of Accounting Horizons, another AAA committee of academics, the Financial Accounting and Reporting Section of the Financial Reporting Policy Committee, took the opposite position on the relative attributes of the IFRS versus U.S. GAAP: empirical evidence suggested that analysts actually preferred working with GAAP financial statements instead of IFRS. Consequently, the elimination of the SEC requirement to provide reconciliations of differences between IFRS and U.S. GAAP was premature.
But, whatever these papers stated at the time they were published, time has elapsed, and both IFRS and GAAP have changed. Has IFRS been improved? The SEC needs to acknowledge that IFRS has taken a number of steps in the wrong direction: to name just a few, there are the borrowing costs and pension accounting issues that I already mentioned; there is also the free choice in accounting for non-controlling interests, and most recently, there is the proposed hedge accounting revisions that would broaden and liberalize the application of hedge accounting. I wonder if a single investor has called for any of these changes that will permit preparers to further manipulate earnings?
False Claim #4: IFRS is already widely adopted elsewhere
The IASB has been successful in achieving various degrees of acceptance of IFRS in many jurisdictions, and notwithstanding one significant carve-out, the EU should be regarded as the IASB's greatest success. But, if proponents of IFRS adoption are claiming that the U.S. should be following the EU to IFRS, the reasons why the EU adopted IFRS must be examined – for they are as different from legitimate regulatory goals for the U.S. as north is from south.
The impetus for IFRS adoption in the EU has its roots in events that were triggered by the NYSE listing of Daimler-Benz in 1993. At that time, German GAAP was known for the availability of so-called "hidden reserves," which permitted a high degree of non-transparent income smoothing. The SEC was under significant pressure to waive the reconciliation to GAAP requirement, but the SEC held firm; and the financial results reported by Daimler backed them up. For its latest reporting period disclosed in its initial registration statement, Daimler showed a small profit under German GAAP, but a significant loss under US GAAP. The difference was due to Daimler releasing reserves that were accrued in prior periods under German GAAP.
For similar reasons, the Daimler-Benz listing incited a debate in Germany about whether its own accounting standards were adequate. In 1998, German law was changed to allow listed companies a choice between German GAAP, IFRS or US GAAP. The end result was that many companies switched away from German GAAP, and about half of those switchers picked US GAAP.
Just as today, where the EU fears that the US could end up with too much influence on the IASB, the US GAAP switchers seem to have caused great concern throughout Europe; both governments and large banks feared the loss of their power to establish accounting standards, and especially feared inflexible standards that were rigorously interpreted and zealously enforced by the SEC. Stated bluntly, there was great concern that US GAAP could take over Europe; so, in 2002, the European Commission acted swiftly and decisively to mandate IFRS for all listed companies in the EU.
My point is that the SEC is now being urged to give up its prerogative to set accounting standards for U.S. issuers – not for the greater good as is generally thought, but solely because members of the EU feared their own loss of sovereignty. Without adoption of IFRS by the EU, we wouldn't be discussing whether the US should be adopting IFRS in any manner, shape or form; and anybody who doesn't think that the EU won't push back hard if it finds that the U.S. is limiting the EU's ability to influence, if not control, the IASB is kidding herself.
If the shoe were on the other foot – in other words, if the U.S. were part of the IFRS coalition along with the rest of the world – would the EU be inclined to join the coalition if it couldn't control the outcomes? Of course not.
False Claim #5: Even though IFRS may not be consistently applied elsewhere, the SEC can enforce compliance with IFRS as it sees fit.
It's hard to imagine that SEC enforcement of IFRS can take place without SEC-quality enforcement in the EU at a minimum. More likely, one of two scenarios will come to pass: SEC enforcement will raise the quality of IFRS worldwide, or the SEC will be pressured to join in a race to the bottom. I fear, and would expect, the race to the bottom scenario.
Here's an example of how the race to the bottom could take place: a questionable interpretation of IFRS is the basis of a loan loss allowance methodology adopted by, say, a French bank; and that treatment is approved by its French auditors and regulators. The race to the bottom begins when SEC registrants facing similar facts and circumstances argue to the SEC that if they were forced to comply with the SEC's stricter interpretation of IFRS, then they would be placed at an economic disadvantage – it could create competitive pressures, or perhaps affect compliance with banking regulations.
Consequently, even though the SEC may find no merit in the registrant's position, it might have to yield to pressure from registrants and sacrifice investor protections. The pressure could also come from an outside source: Congress, lobbyists for special interest groups, other foreign governments, and maybe even the United Nations. Even if the SEC manages to keep the high ground, the scenario is not pleasant to contemplate, and arises from the fundamental problem of a single set of global accounting standards: the present and likely future reality is that one size doesn't fit all. The relatively low degree of detail in IFRS also creates opportunities for this type of race to the bottom scenario to occur, and the higher detail present in U.S. GAAP may explain why it rarely occurs in the U.S.
I think there is also a technical problem that has not yet been the subject of much discussion and could easily start that race to the bottom rolling. If the SEC were to implement the so-called 'condorsement' approach, U.S. GAAP would continue to survive with IFRS rules incorporated into it. Ignoring whether such an approach is actually practicable or even feasible, U.S. GAAP provides that when an authoritative source does not specify an accounting treatment, an issuer would eventually be allowed to adopt a "practice that is widely recognized and prevalent either generally or in the industry." U.S. registrants could validly claim that they are permitted to adopt industry practices that developed globally among any critical mass of IFRS issuers, and not just in the U.S.
CLICK HERE FOR PART THREE OF THIS ESSAY.
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