GAAP is no longer mandatory
By stlplace on Nov 19, 2007 in Stocks
for foreign companies listed in the US. But it IS still mandatory for US companies. Here are the news from MSNBC. Here is the Chinese version (from Caijing).
GAAP is the US General Accepted Accounting Principle, vs. the international standard (US always like to have its own standard, isn’t it). I think this could reduce the accounting expenses for many Chinese companies listed in the US. Not sure for Chinese companies, is this significant or not? So this is not good news for US educated accountants?
Just kidding. On more serious level, I think the most important thing of accounting, is to show the true status of the business of a company. Warren Buffett used an extreme example one time (in his annual report) to show exotic accounting can be used to show artificial good numbers.
As a side note, I noticed Longtop LFT has to expense 24 million USD for the shared transfered from its chairman to employees. I still think “transfer of shares” alone did not consititue an expense, but awarding of stock options does.
