RECENT ASSIGNMENT

The Business School
BUACC2606 – Corporate Accounting
Semester 1, 2013
RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT
Assessment weight: 25%
Due Date: Week 10
Length: 2000 words
Group Assignment: 2 people
“International accounting standards are ‘unusable” from an investor’s viewpoint and make
‘global allocation of capital more complex instead of simplifying it”. Chief financial officers at
large listed entities say. Millions of dollars have been spent adopting international financial
reporting standards to help investors make like-for-like comparisons between companies in
global capital markets. But CFO’s say they are useless and have driven financial disclosures
to unmanageable levels…… Investors don’t open the 60-70 pages of IFRS account, they
rely on investor reports and management briefing to understand a company’s numbers…….
The criticism comes as the United States, the world’s largest capital market, decides
whether to retire its domestic accounting standard (US GAAP) and adopt IFRS”. Australian
Financial Review, 6/2/2012.
In the light of the above statement;
1. Describe the IASB Conceptual Framework’s perspective of users and their decisions.
2. Which qualitative characteristics of financial reporting, as per the IASB Conceptual
Framework, appear not to be satisfied by current reporting practices as per IFRS.
3. In your opinion, do corporate financial reports satisfy the central objective of financial
reporting as identified in the Conceptual Framework? Discuss and give example to
support your opinion.