Three quarters of the 500 accounting professors polled in a recent survey think that International Financial Reporting Standards need to be immediately incorporated into U.S. accounting curricula, and nearly half believe that the U.S. should transition to IFRS to remain competitive.
In the survey, by Big Four firm KPMG and the American Accounting Association, half of the responding professors said that they thought a low sense of urgency exists among U.S. regulators to adopt IFRS by a "date certain," while only 16 percent believe that regulators have a high sense of urgency. Seven in 10 said that their most significant challenge in teaching IFRS is making room for it in the curriculum.
Despite this challenge, 70 percent said that they have taken significant steps to incorporate IFRS into the curriculum. In addition, 83 percent believe that IFRS needs to be incorporated into their curricula by 2011.
Seventy-four percent of respondents predicted that U.S. adoption of IFRS would occur through convergence of U.S. GAAP with IFRS by 2015 or later. Meanwhile, 17 percent think that U.S. public companies will be required to adopt IFRS outright by 2015 or earlier. Nine percent think that IFRS will not be adopted by U.S. companies.
Fifty-nine percent of faculty believe that the CPA Examination will include significant IFRS content by 2012/2013, and 54 percent expect comprehensive coverage of IFRS in intermediate accounting textbooks by 2011/2012.
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