‘There can be few who work for multinational companies, with some involvement with their financial reporting systems, who have not thought how good it would be to have one accounting language throughout the world. At present, accounting is far from that objective. Accountants inhabit a kind of Tower of Babel, where we not only speak different languages but also give different interpretations of the same events and transactions.’ Sir Bryan Carlsberg, Secretary-General of the International Accounting Standards Committee, 1995.

Requirement Discuss:

(a) The advantages of harmonizing accounting standards;

(b) The reasons why global harmonization has not yet been achieved.