Reporting All Liabilities—Not Just Some of Them

• In Event: Accounting and Disclosure

Abstract

Abstract: The U.S. securities laws explicitly state that companies must report in their financial statements filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission all of their liabilities. Reporting companies have never done that because the accounting rulemakers in the U.S., to whom the SEC has, without any authorization from the U.S Congress, delegated accounting rulemaking to the private accounting profession and other business interests, have defined the term “liability” in such a way as to exclude many of them. The reason this has occurred over the years is because the SEC, financial accounting rulemakers, and the public accounting and independent auditing professions have been too close to the business sector of society which has as its primary interest the promotion of its own interests at the expense of all of societies other interests.

Author

• Bruce Committe, none