The SEC has waived reconciliation to U.S. GAAP for foreign private issuers (That is, foreign companies that register in the United States) that prepare financial statements, filed on Form 20-F, in full compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). It has proposed a roadmap that – if followed by the new SEC leadership- could mandate adoption of IFRS beginning in 2014, Taken together with the rapidly growing pace of IFRS adoption by other influential countries (e.g., Canada, which will officially switch from Canadian GAAP- a near- twin of U.S> GAAP- to IFRS by 2011), this portends a potential worldwide embrace of IFRS over the next few years. The highly touted U.S. GAAP-IFRS convergence project, while still moving forward, will soon be eclipsed by these other events. While it is by no means certain, if the SEC road map comes to fruition, it will have consequences that will be felt by accountants in the United States.
 The advantages of a single set of financial reporting standards are manifest, particularly as internationalization of business activity becomes the norm. In particular, having uniform, high-quality standards has been extolled as fostering international business relationships, with the goal being the facilitation of cross-border capital flows and the lowering of the cost of capital – the expected result of the anticipated reduction of perceived accounting risk. The actual record has been somewhat mixed, although over time, these benefits will accrue to many, if not most, participants, with little or no offsetting harm to any other capital market participants.
 There are economic arguments to be made for the adoption of a single set of uniform financial reporting standards—for which there is only one viable candidate, namely IFRS. For various reasons, the FASB’s role as the putative international standards setter is no longer tenable. IFRS is widely viewed as being at minimum, of very good quality and adequate for the task. The next battleground will be over the quality of auditing and enforcement applied to IFRS-based financial statements across the diverse jurisdictions where IFRS has nominally been adopted, but where it may or may not have been fully and properly implemented by financial statement preparers.