Questions are swirling around the GAAP-IFRS transition now that the SEC has extended the public comment period on its road map proposal from Feb. 19 until April 20.

The purpose of the delay is to allow folks like you to spend more time evaluating and responding to the proposal.

The IFRS coverage I’ve read lately raises many questions, so I want to ask and answer three important ones here.

What is the state of IFRS adoption in the rest of the world?

Widespread and growing. More than 100 countries have moved to the IFRS framework or are in the process of doing so.

What are some of the key issues that may alter the current road map’s timing?

There are several factors, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report detailing issues relevant to corporate directors this year. These include:

• The degree to which IFRS accounting standards are improved in the next year or so;

• Whether or not the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the body that maintains IFRS, can secure the funding necessary to function independently;

• The amount of IFRS education/expertise available to U.S. companies; and

• The ease with which IFRS can be integrated with XBRL frameworks.

How do investors and analysts feel about IFRS?

Pretty darn good. While they remain a bit confused about the specifics, they appear quite supportive of the shift’s intentions, according to a new survey by KPMG of 130 senior finance and accounting executives and 100 U.S. sell-side analysts and institutional investors (from mutual, pension, and hedge funds, as well as employee benefit plans, insurance companies, charities, and college endowments):

• 65 percent of investment executives and analysts surveyed by KPMG expect that U.S. adoption of IFRS will make U.S. capital markets more attractive to foreign investors.

• 57 percent of investors and analysts believed the timeline proposal announced by the SEC in November to be “about right,” while 18 percent said it wasn’t aggressive enough (55 percent of corporate executives agreed with the timeline, while 8 percent said it was “too long”).

• 70 percent of investment respondents pointed out that “open and proactive” communication from the companies they cover would have a “positive” or “very positive” effect on their evaluation of that organization. ###