SEC Chair Tells CPAs to Focus on Basics, Not ‘Shiny’ Baubles

SEC Chair Paul Atkins chided the accounting industry Monday for its past support of disclosures he said would have undermined corporate reporting and urged firms to get back to “basics.”

The industry should focus on delivering corporate accounting that meets the needs of investors and shouldn’t “let the shiny bauble distract you,” Atkins said at an American Institute of CPAs event in Washington.

“I was really shocked at the focus of some of the firms on things that I think would have completely subverted the importance of financial materiality and financial accounting,” Atkins said. “That’s some of the disclosure rules ...