Accounting Boards to Create Credit Crisis Group

The International Accounting Standards Board and its U.S. counterpart, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, plan to create a global advisory group to review financial reporting issues related to the credit crisis.

The group will include regulators, preparers, auditors, investors and other financial statement users. At a joint meeting on October 20 and 21, FASB and the IASB will discuss the initial topics that the advisory group will consider. "Recent statements from the G7 and other world leaders highlight the need for an internationally coordinated policy response to the credit crisis," said IASB Chairman Sir David Tweedie (pictured) in a statement.

The two boards have been coordinating efforts in developing accounting standards as U.S. and international standards continue to converge. The IASB and FASB have published a discussion paper on financial statement presentation and are asking for public comment. The IASB and FASB propose to introduce cohesiveness and disaggregation as their two main objectives. Cohesiveness would ensure that a reader of financial statements could follow the flow of information through an entity's different statements. Disaggregration would ensure that items that respond differently to economic events are shown separately.

"Providing investors with the most transparent, consistent financial reporting possible is more critical than ever to the efficiency and soundness of our capital markets," said FASB Chairman Robert Herz in a statement.

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