Accounting Onion

Financial Accounting versus Financial Reporting – Part 1

Tom Selling — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 04:06:01 +0000

An Honest Financial Accounting: Draft of Chapter 1 – Part I Chapter Title: Financial Accounting versus Financial Reporting Draft Table of Contents In this chapter we consider where – within the broader activity of “financial reporting” –“financial accounting” should begin and end. “Accounting” A popular way to begin discussing the basic ideas of “accounting” is…

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Financial Accounting versus Financial Reporting – Part 2

Tom Selling — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 04:05:41 +0000

An Honest Financial Accounting: Draft of Chapter 1 – Part II Chapter Title: Financial Accounting versus Financial Reporting Draft Table of Contents “Financial” Accounting In the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Congress gave the new Securities and Exchange Commission broad powers to regulate the disclosures of public companies, including the rules of accounting. But sensing…

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An Economic Basis for Honest Financial Accounting

Tom Selling — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 05:34:16 +0000

An Honest Financial Accounting: Draft of Introduction to Preliminary Edition – Part II Draft Table of Contents It so happens that around the time Beaver published his recommendations for the FASB, Harvard philosophy professor John Rawls took on the larger question – in which financial accounting surely plays a part – of fairness in politics…

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A Thumbnail History of Financial Accounting’s Descent into Madness

Tom Selling — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 05:31:42 +0000

Draft Table of Contents An Honest Financial Accounting: Draft of Introduction to Preliminary Edition – Part I Every report by independent auditors on the financial statements of US public companies must state that, in their opinion, said financial statements are “fairly presented” in accordance with “accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America”…

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An Honest Financial Accounting: First Preliminary Edition

Tom Selling — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 05:29:33 +0000

Dear reader: With this first post to The Accounting Onion in almost four(!) years, I am establishing a portal for commenting on my book project, of An Honest Financial Accounting: The Myth, and Making it a Reality. By publishing a series of first drafts, I hope to solicit comments. Eventually, a “first preliminary edition” will…

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Ungarbling Financial Accounting

Tom Selling — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 07:13:20 +0000

Alas, I have not posted very much of late. But, it’s only because I am trying to find as much time as possible to write my book describing a simple, comprehensive and robust basis of accounting that any public company could use; and that would produce more relevant information for investors than U.S. GAAP or IFRS.…

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Will CAMs Get the Shaft from the ‘New’ PCAOB?

Tom Selling — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 22:47:12 +0000

In recent years I have presented an update on the activities of the PCAOB at the annual meeting of the Association of Audit Committee Members. From that experience — particularly this past year — I can tell you that audit committees are not happy with PCAOB rulemaking. Much of it feels to them kind of…

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GAAP and the Federal Budget Deficit

Tom Selling — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 01:37:26 +0000

The accounting topic of the season is income taxes. But, as the nation contemplates what Congress could end up passing, I want to talk about how one under-the-radar amendment to financial accounting standards has been quietly adding to the federal budget deficit for two decades and counting. The amendment I speak of came into existence…

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Walter Schuetze: 1932 – 2017

Tom Selling — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 07:25:18 +0000

I marvel at how much mere happenstance can play in a career. I might not have become a teacher, or gone to graduate school but for one meeting with an administrator when I was a senior at Cornell. Twenty years later, I was privileged to serve as the academic fellow in the SEC’s Office of…

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Rays of Sunlight to Shine on Audits — and Auditability

Tom Selling — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 04:28:32 +0000

Yesterday was a very good day for investors! The SEC finally approved PCAOB rules that will make a lot more information public about what actually went down during the audit. It is certainly fair to say that the new model for the audit report is of historic significance. And of the new items, by…

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