Financial Reporting - International Accounting Standards Essay

Financial Reporting - International Accounting Standards - Essay Example The essay "Financial Reporting - International Accounting Standards" analyses the challenges faced in establishing International Financial Reporting Standard, the characteristics of the Framework and International Financial Reporting Standard for small and medium entities. Challenges A financial reporting system should focus on the needs of all capital providers and not just for a class of people. International Accounting Standards Board was set up with the sole mission to develop, in the public interest, a single set of high quality, understandable and international financing reporting standards for general purpose financial statement. International Accounting Standards Board had it fair share of challenges to accomplish its mission. Let us analyse the challenges faced by International Accounting Standards Board below: National Financial Environment: Every country follows a certain set of accounting standards based on its local financial environment. Therefore developing an accounting standard which suits individual country specific needs is a very challenging task. International Convergence: The difference between the national accounting standards and International Financial Reporting Standard is minimal and it lies mostly because of the differential treatment of specific transactions. Hence the issue of international convergence comes in which tries to state whether the gap between the national standard and international accounting standard can be bridged and converged and adopted by countries. Government rules and regulations: Country specific rules and regulations have a bearing on the way the financial information is produced. Let us take for example, a country have the minimum tax rates and with lots of other perks to the companies. In this case a company incorporated in this country because of favorable tax regime will not try to malign its financial reports. Similarly, tax heavens (Tax Heaven) such as Mauritius, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, etc. attract more investment from companies to save tax. Many countries have double taxation because of weak tax reforms but some countries have robust taxation policies which are transparent. International Financial Reporting Standard therefore needs to factor in such issues. Social and Cultural issues: Islamic countries follow Islamic financing, which are very much different from the other national standards. Therefore, International Financial Reporting Standard, whose role is to portray the correct picture of the financial stature of the company, may find hard to make a strong foot hold in such countries. Islam financing, does not allow companies to earn high profits due to which these companies try and manipulate the accounts accordingly (Mohammed Ibrahim). International Financial Reporting Standard being an initiative of the western countries may not be acceptable in this Islam driven countries. Update the International Standards on Regular Intervals: The national accounting standards are always updated to factor in and control various lags in the standards on a time to time basis. International Accounting Standards Board similarly also have to deliver on the same lines. The challenge here is that it is very complex and they have to do it on a global scale. Therefore this requires time, respective field experts and funds. Every time they update a standard based on practical issues, they need to convey it to the countries and they in turn