Introduction to the standards setting process
The first statement of standard accounting practice was published in 1970 in the United
Kingdom. Prior to this there were relatively few financial requirements for companies. The
international accounting standards committee (IASC) was set up in 1973. Between 1973 and
its demise in April 2001 it published 41 international accounting standards. These were
largely drafted by part-time volunteer boards from a wide background of experience and
range of countries. It resulted in a rather slow and long-drawn-out process of developing the
standards. Many of these offered a number of options and thus were largely ignored by the
major standards –setting countries. However problems started to emerge with multinationals
having to prepare a different set of statements for different jurisdictions. It therefore became
difficult to make comparisons across countries. –for example, when Daimler Benz was first
quoted in New York, the same set of financial statement disclosed a profit of 630DM in
Germany but a loss of 1300DM using US rules ( Robert .J.K, 2005)