Does the 20-F Reconciliation Affect Investors' Perception of Comparability between Foreign Private Issuers (FPIs) and U.S. Firms?

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donal Byard ◽  
Shamin Mashruwala ◽  
Jangwon Suh
Keyword(s):  
Information Transfer ◽  
Earnings Announcements ◽  
Financial Analysts ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Rule Change ◽  
Similar Decrease ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Do So

SYNOPSIS Until recently, all Foreign Private Issuers (FPIs) listed on U.S. exchanges were required to reconcile their non-U.S. GAAP financial statements with U.S. GAAP in their annual Form 20-F filing. In November 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) eliminated this requirement for FPIs reporting in IFRS. We use this rule change to provide evidence on whether the U.S. GAAP reconciliation affects investors' perception of the degree of comparability between FPIs and domestic U.S. firms reporting in U.S. GAAP. To do so, we test whether the SEC's rule change reduced information transfer from IFRS-reporting FPIs to comparable U.S. firms at the FPIs' earnings announcements. Consistent with the U.S. GAAP reconciliation increasing investors' perception of comparability between FPIs and U.S. firms, we find that information transfer from IFRS-reporting FPIs to comparable U.S. firms decreased significantly after the rule change, on average. We also find evidence consistent with a decrease in comparability for financial analysts forecasting earnings for comparable U.S. firms. In contrast, we find no evidence of a similar decrease in information transfer for FPIs not reporting in IFRS that are unaffected by the rule change.

THE SEC PREEMPTS THE ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES BOARD IN 1965: THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE DEFERRED TAX CREDIT RELATING TO INSTALLMENT SALES

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Zeff
Keyword(s):  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Accounting Practice ◽  
Slow Pace ◽  
Accounting Principles ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Deferred Tax ◽  
Accounting Procedure ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Do So

In 1959, the Accounting Principles Board (APB) replaced the Committee on Accounting Procedure because the latter was unable to deal forthrightly with a series of important issues. But during the APB's first half-dozen years, its record of achievement was no more impressive than its predecessor's. The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Manuel F. Cohen, criticized the APB's slow pace and unwillingness to tackle difficult issues. This article discusses the circumstances attending the SEC's issuance of an Accounting Series Release in late 1965 to demonstrate forcefully to the APB that, when it is unable to carry out its responsibility to “narrow the areas of difference” in accounting practice, the SEC is prepared to step in and do so itself. In this sense, the article deals with the tensions between the private and public sectors in the establishment of accounting principles in the U.S. during the mid-1960s. The article makes extensive use of primary resource materials in the author's personal archive, which have not been used previously in published work.

Interoperability of XBRL Financial Statements in the U.S.

2012 ◽  
pp. 129-144
Author(s):  
Hongwei Zhu ◽  
Harris Wu
Keyword(s):  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Public Companies ◽  
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ◽  
Data Elements ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
The U.S

In the wake of the global financial crisis, a pressing need exists for improving investor friendliness, especially the transparency and interoperability of the financial statements of public companies. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) and XBRL taxonomies can accomplish this objective. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has mandated that all public companies must file their financial statements using XBRL and the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) taxonomy according to a phased-in schedule. Are the XBRL-based financial statements interoperable? This question is addressed by analyzing all of the annual XBRL financial statements filed to the SEC as of February 26, 2010. On average, 63% of data elements are not comparable between a pair of statements. The incomparability is partly caused by issues related to the GAAP taxonomy and misuse of the taxonomy by companies. The results have practical implications that will help improve the quality of financial data.

SEC XBRL Filing Requirements: An Instructional Case on Tagging Financial Statement Disclosures

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Capozzoli ◽  
Stephanie Farewell
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Publicly Traded ◽  
Item Level ◽  
Interactive Data ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT: On January 20, 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released Rule 33-9002 for the phase-in of interactive data (SEC 2009a). An important component of this rule is the phase-in of detailed tagging of financial statement note disclosures. Tagging is the process of associating a taxonomy element with a financial statement concept for a particular context. While some of the filers have participated in the SEC Voluntary Filing Project and prepared instance documents tagged at the line item level most have not prepared detail-tagged notes to accompany the financial statements (SEC 2005; Choi et al. 2008). This case discusses the structure of disclosures, as they exist in the 2009 U.S. GAAP Taxonomy, followed by a discussion of dimensional extensions and concludes with an example of block and detailed disclosure tagging using Rivet Software’s Dragon Tag (Rivet 2009). The example uses the capitalized costs disclosure for Anadarko Petroleum, a publicly traded company. Following the example, the case requires students to block and detail tag the capitalized costs disclosure for Dig Deep, a hypothetical oil and gas company. By completing the case, students develop an understanding of the current U.S. GAAP taxonomy, skills relating to mapping and tagging processes, and make use of a commonly used XBRL taxonomy and instance document creation program.

Interoperability of XBRL Financial Statements in the U.S.

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongwei Zhu ◽  
Harris Wu
Keyword(s):  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Public Companies ◽  
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ◽  
Business Reporting ◽  
Data Elements ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The U.S

In the wake of the global financial crisis, a pressing need exists for improving investor friendliness, especially the transparency and interoperability of the financial statements of public companies. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) and XBRL taxonomies can accomplish this objective. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has mandated that all public companies must file their financial statements using XBRL and the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) taxonomy according to a phased-in schedule. Are the XBRL-based financial statements interoperable? This question is addressed by analyzing all of the annual XBRL financial statements filed to the SEC as of February 26, 2010. On average, 63% of data elements are not comparable between a pair of statements. The incomparability is partly caused by issues related to the GAAP taxonomy and misuse of the taxonomy by companies. The results have practical implications that will help improve the quality of financial data.

Analyst Following and Forecast Accuracy After Eliminating the 20-F Reconciliation Between IFRS and U.S. GAAP

2020 ◽  
pp. 0148558X2094464
Author(s):  
Wen Li ◽  
Huai Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Financial Analysts ◽  
Forecast Accuracy ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Analyst Following ◽  
Analyst Coverage ◽  
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ◽  
Financial Reporting Standards ◽  
Accounting Principles

In 2007, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to allow foreign private issuers to file financial statements prepared according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) without reconciliation to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Using a sample of foreign private issuers from 35 countries/regions during the period of 2005 to 2008, this article investigates how the elimination of the 20-F reconciliation affects financial analysts. We find that it significantly reduces analyst coverage but has no impact on forecast accuracy. We show that analysts who are greatly affected are more likely to terminate their coverage of IFRS firms after the SEC’s rule than other analysts. In addition, we hypothesize and find that eliminating the 20-F reconciliation has a greater impact on firms whose 20-F reconciliation is more useful to analysts. For these firms, the elimination of the 20-F reconciliation significantly reduces both analyst coverage and forecast accuracy. Overall, our results suggest that the elimination of the 20-F reconciliation imposes costs on financial analysts.

scholarly journals Accounting Restatements and the Timeliness of Disclosures

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad A. Badertscher ◽  
Jeffrey J. Burks
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Announcements ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Negligible Effect ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Reliable Information ◽  
Advisory Group ◽  
Quarterly Earnings ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Jel Classifications

SYNOPSIS Regulators are concerned that during the process of restating financial statements, firms fail to provide timely progress updates, and delay earnings announcements and regulatory filings. To reduce these perceived lags in disclosure, an advisory group to the Securities and Exchange Commission recommends more use of catch-up adjustments rather than restatements to correct accounting errors. Some investor groups oppose the recommendations because they fear that preparers will begin to correct important errors through catch-up adjustments, which are less transparent than restatements. We inform this debate by examining (1) the length of disclosure lags around restatements to understand the extent of the problem, and (2) the causes of disclosure lags to evaluate whether the reforms would address the root causes of the lags. We find that lengthy lags are uncommon and appear to be largely unavoidable consequences of fraud investigations. When fraud is a factor, the firm typically takes weeks or months to release restatement details, quarterly earnings, and SEC filings, likely because investigations are necessary to restore the firm's ability to produce reliable information. When fraud is not a factor, the firm typically discloses the restatement's earnings impact within a day of the initial restatement announcement, and delays the quarterly earnings announcement and SEC filing by less than a week. Although fraud is by far the most economically significant cause of lags, we also find that lags increase when a restatement involves multiple, long-standing, or large errors. Finally, we show that the restatements targeted by the reforms tend to have the shortest lags, even among non-fraudulent restatements. Thus, the proposed reforms would have a negligible effect on disclosure timeliness because the targeted restatements tend to have short lags to begin with, and because long lags appear to be caused by inherent constraints on producing reliable information. JEL Classifications: M41, G38. Data Availability: Data are available from sources identified in the paper.

Flex or Break? Extensions in XBRL Disclosures to the SEC

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger S. Debreceny ◽  
Stephanie M. Farewell ◽  
Maciej Piechocki ◽  
Carsten Felden ◽  
Andre Gräning ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Statements ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Business Reporting ◽  
Disclosure Requirements ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Information Consumers ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Made In

SYNOPSIS The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) in a multi-year program to enhance the functionality of the Commission's EDGAR database. Filers tag their financial statements with elements from a taxonomy that defines the reporting concepts so that the XBRL files can be understood by information consumers. The U.S. GAAP taxonomy was designed to represent common reporting practices and support the disclosure requirements of U.S. GAAP. If taxonomy elements for each disclosure concept are not present, the filer creates an extension element. Extensions, when used appropriately, provide decision-relevant information. When used inappropriately, particularly when a semantically equivalent element already exists in the foundation taxonomy, extensions add no information content. This research analyzes extensions made in a subset of XBRL filings made to the SEC between April 2009 and June 2010. Forty percent of these extensions were unnecessary, as semantically equivalent elements were already in the U.S. GAAP taxonomy. Extensions that aggregated or disaggregated existing elements comprised 21 percent of the extensions. New concepts accounted for 30 percent of the extensions, although many were variants of existing elements, rather than significantly new concepts.

Adios! Airways: An Assignment on Mapping Financial Statements to the U.S. GAAP XBRL Taxonomy

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Debreceny ◽  
Stephanie Farewell
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Financial Statement ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Business Reporting ◽  
Instructional Resource ◽  
Mapping Process ◽  
Interactive Data ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT: XBRL, based on XML, is an Internet language for disclosure of business reporting language. XBRL is the technological foundation for the interactive data mandate by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The mandate requires corporate filers to disclose data in quarterly and annual reports in XBL. A key building block supporting the mandate is a substantial U.S. GAAP XBRL taxonomy that encapsulates most of the reporting concepts found in financial reporting. Filers must align their existing reports to the taxonomy. The accuracy of mapping financial statement line items to the U.S. GAAP taxonomy is of fundamental importance. Mapping errors may be as simple as mapping to an incorrect taxonomy concept, which should be discovered during review. Ineffective mapping may lead to unnecessary extensions, which hinders comparability. This instructional resource guides students through the steps in mapping financial statement line items to the taxonomy. While the case does not require students to create an extended taxonomy, it does require completion of a spreadsheet detailing the mapping process that is typical of practice. In addition, the resource provides a checklist that users can refer to during the mapping process.

Concurrent Earnings Announcements and Analysts' Information Production

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Driskill ◽  
Marcus P. Kirk ◽  
Jennifer Wu Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Announcements ◽  
Financial Analysts ◽  
Earnings Forecasts ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Conference Calls ◽  
Stock Recommendations ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
Sample Firm ◽  
Jel Classifications

ABSTRACT We examine whether financial analysts are subject to limited attention. We find that when analysts have another firm in their coverage portfolio announcing earnings on the same day as the sample firm (a “concurrent announcement”), they are less likely to issue timely earnings forecasts for the sample firm's subsequent quarter than analysts without a concurrent announcement. Among the analysts who issue timely earnings forecasts, the thoroughness of their work decreases as their number of concurrent announcements increases. In addition, analysts are more sluggish in providing stock recommendations and less likely to ask questions in earnings conference calls as their number of concurrent announcements increases. Moreover, when analysts face concurrent announcements, they tend to allocate their limited attention to firms that already have rich information environments, leaving behind firms in need of attention. Overall, our evidence suggests that even financial analysts, who serve as information specialists, are subject to limited attention. JEL Classifications: G10; G11; G17; G14. Data Availability: Data are publicly available from the sources identified in the paper.

The SEC's Revolving Door: Insights from Boards of Directors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane B. Wutzler
Keyword(s):  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Revolving Door ◽  
Regulatory Capture ◽  
Accounting Quality ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The U.S

This study aims to shed light on the determinants and consequences of the revolving door at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). While revolvers may be good monitors due to their SEC experience and, thus, continuously create benefits for the economy ("schooling"), it is possible that they exploit their insights into the enforcement process and private connections to undermine enforcement ("regulatory capture"). Using a newly created dataset of revolvers who moved from the SEC to company boards, this study shows that not all revolvers are appointed for the same reasons and create the same benefits for their new employers. I demonstrate that those revolvers most closely involved in the enforcement process are associated with fewer future enforcement actions while accounting quality does not improve. Contrarily, external revolvers seem to use their monitoring and advising duties to improve accounting quality.

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