Abstract This article presents a commentary on jurisdictional conflicts and conceptual differences in standard settings for financial reporting. The author's prime concern is towards the disharmony caused by these conflicts and differences within the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF), the organization that oversees the FASB, and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). The disharmony is in large part caused by the inherent conflict in having two standard-setting boards, but in this case, magnified by the two boards having overlapping responsibilities and different conceptual frameworks, including different objectives of financial reporting. In a 1977 report on the performance of the FASB, the trustees of the FAF stated that the Board must deal with municipal accounting. In 1984, after several years of discussions and compromises among interested parties, the FAF established the GASB, adopted a jurisdictional agreement describing the separate responsibilities of the GASB and FASB, and promised to review the accounting standard-setting structure in 1989.
Donald Kirk (Fri,) studied this question.