Earlier this month, I ran an interview with International Accounting Standards Board member Warren McGregor on a number of issues including the question of whether the United States would adopt the global accounting rules of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). In that interview he said it was inevitable and that "we are 80% there." That's not withstanding the comments made by the new Securities and Exchange Commission chief Mary Schapiro. McGregor told me we could just ignore her. Yeah right!

Now it appears, the journey to IFRS has slammed into reverse with CFO.com reporting that the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants has sent a letter to the SEC slamming the road map put up by the previous SEC chairman Christopher Cox requiring US public companies to use international financial reporting standards. According to the CPAs, it's just not workable, saying it's vague and there are too many inconsistencies. But the real reason would be the financial crisis, something the bean counters seem to acknowledge. "It would be reasonable to conclude that the monetary and human capital costs of the transition could be burdensome to entities with limited resources and prohibitive for some smaller entities, even over a period of many years."

Financial Executives International has also questioned it, according to this report, saying the transition might be impossible.

Melissa Klein Aguilar at Compliance Week writes that more criticism of IFRS is coming in from the National Association of the State Boards of Accountancy, FedEX, Carl Berquist, chief accounting officer for Marriott International and Patrick Mulva, controller for Exxon Mobil who argued that the cost of IFRS conversion "would easily exceed the cost of SOX 404 implementation".

That's just to name a few. And while this crisis continues, we can expect the opposition to keep growing.