Is the average accountant being strangled by overregulation? Have traditional accounting and auditing practices been misunderstood and unfairly maligned? Can anything be done to reverse these damaging trends? In the 1984 edition of this book, Eugene H. Flegm gave an emphatic yes to all three questions.
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However, none of his suggestions were followed and today the condition of the accounting profession (defined as to include those in business as well as public accounting) is in dire straits. The regulators - FASB, SEC and the AICPA - have continued to overwhelm practicing accountants with a continuation of detailed rules making. In this updated version of his book, Mr. Flegm explains the causes of the current crisis, how the accounting profession and the FASB failed to deal with the developing problems 20 years ago, and how there is still some hope that the integrity of the profession can be restored. He reiterates his basic belief that only an historical cost based system can be used to establish the badly needed reliability in financial data which after all is why financial statements are relevant at all. He also brings to question whether or not the AICPA and the public auditing firms have not forfeited their self regulation franchise.
