The Harmonisation of International Reporting Standards Essay

The Harmonisation of International Reporting Standards - Essay Example The International Accounting Standard Committee was developed in 1973 by representatives of accounting bodies in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland and the United States. The aim is to develop International Accounting Standards and to implement those standards (IASCF, 2005). The IASC originally comprises of representatives of 106 professional accounting bodies in 79 countries. (Mckee, 2000) A 14-member board having representatives from 13 countries plus the International Federation of Financial analyst governs it. If was formed with a view to bringing out in the interest of people accounting standard to be used in the presentation of financial statements. IASB has been making constant efforts to deliver to the economy an environment, which has the tendency to attract foreign investment. IASB is trying its level best to promote International Accounting Standards (IASs) to the world and ultimately bring harmonization. The European Union and many other individual countries have started considering IAS. The United Kingdom and the US are the notable exceptions in this regard. The local accounting standards for Ireland and the United Kingdom is the Accounting Standards Board (ASB). Its role was first recognized under the Companies Act of 1985 and it finally took over the role of setting accounting standards in 1990. Before 1990, the accounting standards for the United Kingdom and Ireland were set by the Accounting Standards Committee (ASC). The ASB is allowed up to ten board members. Of these, the Chairman and the Technical Director of the Board work on the board full-time. The ASB typically consults an array of authorities when reviewing proposals for new accounting standards or revisions to old accounting standards, but the Board is ultimately autonomous. All accounting standards that the ASB develops are published as â€Å"Financial Reporting Standards† (FRSs) and â€Å"Statements of Standard Accounting Practices† (SSAPs). The first Financial Reporting Standard was the revision of Statement of Standard Accounting 10, concerning cash flow statements, revised in October 1996 (Dunn, 2002).