At the AICPA National Conference this week, FASB Chair Leslie Seidman commented that the convergence of national and international accounting standards is not working well. And it isn't just the Americans who think so. The chair of IASB, Hans Hoogervorst, spoke the to conference after Ms Seidman and had the same opinion.

They both want to work on the current priorities but in the long term that true convergence is not possible. Mr Hoogervost said that in the end the two boards sometimes come to different opinions on some accounting standards. He thought that continuing with the current model for convergence just wouldn't work.

The alternative to convergence is the inclusion of IFRS into US GAAP. This is dependent on the SEC and is at least few months away.