History
Auditors took the leading role in developing GAAP for business enterprises.
Accounting standards have historically been set by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) subject to Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. The AICPA first created the Committee on Accounting Procedure in 1939, and replaced that with the Accounting Principles Board in 1951. In 1973, the Accounting Principles Board was replaced by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) under the supervision of the Financial Accounting Foundation with the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council serving to advise and provide input on the accounting standards. Other organizations involved in determining United States accounting standards include the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), formed in 1984, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
Circa 2008, the FASB issued the FASB Accounting Standards Codification, which reorganized the thousands of US GAAP pronouncements into roughly 90 accounting topics
In 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a preliminary "roadmap" that may lead the U.S. to abandon Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in the future (to be determined in 2011), and to join more than 100 countries around the world instead in using the London-based International Financial Reporting Standards. As of 2010, the convergence project was underway with the FASB meeting routinely with the IASB. The SEC expressed their aim to fully adopt International Financial Reporting Standards in the U.S. by 2014. With the convergence of the U.S. GAAP and the international IFRS accounting systems, as the highest authority over International Financial Reporting Standards, the International Accounting Standards Board is becoming more important in the U.S.
Read more about this topic: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (United States)
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—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
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—Karl Marx (1818–1883)