The elusive truth

When the IFRS accounting standards were introduced at the beginning of 2005, UK companies were among the biggest cheerleaders. But now they find the rules just too much, to judge from comments by Jon Symonds, the head of the Hundred Group of finance directors of large companies. He is distressed by the complexity of the rules and by the theory behind many of the most detailed standards – the use of market values rather than historical costs to value assets. The theoretical complaint comes quite ...