There is more to be gained from a debate, even while speaking different tongues
Sir Jennifer Hughes does a very good and spirited defence for accountancy global unification in her “More to be gained from talking in the same tongue”, September 27 but although she is absolutely right in all what she says she is still wrong.
One of the reasons, or perhaps the only reasons why some of us feel happy about having US GAAP and IFRS living side by side is because that helps to sustain a debate among their respective Standard Boards on matters fraught with such intrinsic difficulties as accountancy. No, let us please hope that we will never have to face one solid cohesive block of standards since who knows what they could contain and there would be no one with sufficient strength to oppose it. For a living example of how much we lose out in benefits from diversity let us just consider all the risks that are beginning to surface as a consequence of having relegated so much of the world’s regulatory power over banks to a single single-minded group in Basel.
One of the reasons, or perhaps the only reasons why some of us feel happy about having US GAAP and IFRS living side by side is because that helps to sustain a debate among their respective Standard Boards on matters fraught with such intrinsic difficulties as accountancy. No, let us please hope that we will never have to face one solid cohesive block of standards since who knows what they could contain and there would be no one with sufficient strength to oppose it. For a living example of how much we lose out in benefits from diversity let us just consider all the risks that are beginning to surface as a consequence of having relegated so much of the world’s regulatory power over banks to a single single-minded group in Basel.
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