Inconsistent application of International Financial Reporting Standards

Abstract

The transformation of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) into a single global language of financial reporting is well under way and followed by a problem of their inconsistent application from country to country, with negative consequences for the global comparability of financial statements. Starting from this, the main purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the main causes of the diversity of financial reporting practices between those countries declaring themselves to be the followers of the IFRS, as well as to identify the ways of overcoming this diversity. Applying the qualitative research methodology, it has been found that the flexibility of the IFRS provisions, which is inevitable in many cases, modifications in their incorporation into national regulatory frameworks and the diversity and unequal effectiveness of national mechanisms for their enforcement and the supervision of their implementation stand for the main causes of inconsistent accounting practices. In order to reduce the inconsistency, national financial reporting regulators should increase their engagement and coordination among themselves, and the International Accounting Standards Board should make additional efforts, which should primarily be focused on the global promotion of the fundamental basis of the IFRS.

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