Earlier this year, the then incoming head of the Securities and Exchange Commission Mary Schapiro indicated she was in no hurry to bring global accounting standards (otherwise known as International Financial Reporting Standards or IFRS) to the United States. "I will not be bound by the existing roadmap that's out for public comment," she said at the time. And yes, that made good copy for the media.

It turns out that was pure politics. According to the SEC Strategic Plan for 2010-2015, the regulator now supports "a single set of high-quality global accounting standards and promotion of the ongoing convergence initiatives between the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) and the International Accounting Standards Board".

The question is whether US business is ready for it. Probably not, reports Marie Leone in CFO.com. It's a huge cultural shit because US accounting standards, or GAAP, are much more rigid with black letter law and require less professional judgement.
< br />And then there are the costs of converting to the new accounting standards. According to this report, the SEC estimates it will be a one-off cost of up to 0.13% of revenue.

US companies are entitled to be suspicious. After all, they were reassured the costs of costs of converting to Sarbanes-Oxley would be minimal.