Fair Value Roundtable Tomorrow

The Securities and Exchange Commission plans a two-session roundtable on fair value accounting and its impact on businesses and users of financial statements. The first session will emphasize fair value from the perspective of large publicly-traded financial institutions and their stakeholders while the second session will look at these issues from the perspective of smaller public companies and their stakeholders. An all-star panel of top business executives, financial practitioners such as CPA firms, professional organization leaders, government officals and academics will be on the panels with representives of FASB, IASB and PCOAB attending as observers.

Two different strains could make the work of these roundtables challenging: on the one hand, accountants probably are already feeling overwhelmed by additional responsibilities created by XBRL and IFRS convergence; on the other hand, the recent run-up in petroleum and food prices probably places historical cost in its weakest position for theoretical soundness in the last quarter-century. It may be time to dust off inflation accounting treatises from 30 years ago, at least in regard to note disclosure.