Iasb e EUA

No Financial Times, um texto de Jennifer Hughes sobre o Iasb e os Estados Unidos (A single standard for the world?, 25/3/2008). Enquanto a Europa levou três anos para implantar as regras internacionais do Iasb, a questão é saber em quanto tempo isto acontecerá com o país mais rico do mundo.

Segundo o texto, a grande questão não é "se" mas "quando".

Expectations are that the US will look to the EU to learn from its experiences.

"Europe didn't happen until the Commission set a date and the same will be true of the US," says Will Rainey, global head of IFRS at Ernst & Young, who thinks the US will have a headstart on the EU, which had to cope with many languages and wildly varying standards and training.

"US GAAP is much more mature and developed than (were) a lot of local European GAAPs," he says. "A lot of its principles are already similar to those in IFRS so US accounting will experience relatively minor tweaks rather than a complete overhaul."

The US should also benefit greatly from the existing IFRS experience elsewhere. More than 100 countries - including Japan, Canada and China - are now using or adopting IFRS.