This is interesting

This is interesting

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http://www.accountancyage.com/accountancyage/news/2260546/treasury-committee-accuses

The gist being:

“The big picture that shareholders want to see is lost in a sea of detail and regulatory disclosures,”

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By thomas34
01st Apr 2010 13:55

It is interesting

but also pretty misleading.

I'm not sure what the Treasury Committee or the writer of the article is trying to impart to its readers.

"The big picture that shareholders want to see is lost in a sea of detail and regulatory disclosures" and "bogged down in detail" seem to have somehow been linked to Lehmann's demise. The evidence of this case is that there was not enough detail in the accounts and/or the regulatory disclosures were either not adhered to or were ineffective in preventing Lehmann's dubious practices.

Time will tell whether the auditors were negligent and will be brought to book in accepting the "Repo 105" transactions - transactions which remove toxic assets from the balance sheet for a matter of days during which, hey presto, the balance sheet date occurs.

Tom Egerton

 

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By User deleted
01st Apr 2010 14:12

IFRS/UKGAAP are at fault

The same thought had crossed my mind in relation to XBRL. The UK GAAP taxonomy has some 4,000 items (or 100,000 if you include dimensions). It is far too cumbersome to be really useful. The taxonomy is not at fault, it merely reflects all the possible data that has to be reported under UK GAAP.

Whilst we are on the subject, do standard setters have a vested interest in making standards complicated (more standards = more work for standard setters)?

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By petersaxton
02nd Apr 2010 04:59

Overview and detail is needed

I've never understood why some people think that one is more important than the other. If you only have an overview in accounts then that isn't enough for many people and if you only have the details it is true that the bigger picture is obscured.

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