The Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee urges theSEC to adopt a rule as soon as possible and no later than April 30, 2008 that will give all issuers a choice between using IFRSor U.S. GAAP for their financial statements.

U.S. adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), has been sidelined by the financial crisis, but deserves more attention.  Both issues illustrate the perils of political interference in financial reporting and in the process of professional standard setting.

If U.S. companies stated their accounts abroadusing International Financial Reporting Standards, they would incur significant additional costs to issue their securities in Europe.

Empirical evidence suggests that even a worldwide adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) alone would not lead to global convergence of reporting practices.

WillExtensible Business Reporting Languagethreaten the future of American business competition?

U.S. companies need to accelerate the development and use of XBRL, a financial reporting system that enables investors and analysts to compare company performance.

In this open letter to SEC chairman Christopher Cox, the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee offers several policy proposals for consideration by the commission.

The Committee is concerned about increasing interference with independent accounting standard setting and recommends separating accounting standard setting and financial reporting from measuring regulatory capital for financial institutions.