FALLS CHURCH, VA — “Repeal of the last-in, first-out method of accounting is the piñata of revenue raisers, holding out the prospect of billions in increased revenues. Curiously, there is a fleeting, ‘fish or cut bait’ quality to the repeal,” George White states in the inaugural installment of Tax Accounting Developments, a regular column he will write for Tax Notes, a weekly magazine published by Tax Analysts on tax policy and administration. The column is directed at tax practitioners who don’t specialize in tax accounting and will discuss procedural, regulatory, and legislative developments in that area.

Today’s inaugural column, “LIFO and IFRS: How Closely Linked?” examines Treasury’s recent legislative proposal to repeal the LIFO method of valuing inventories. Specifically, it focuses on the linkage between LIFO and International Financial Reporting Standards, the proposed globally accepted accounting standards for financial reporting.

White, an attorney and CPA, is a retired national tax partner with Ernst & Young LLP; more recently he was with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He is the author of several publications on consolidated returns and tax accounting and is an adjunct professor at the George Washington School of Business, where he teaches graduate courses in tax accounting and corporate tax.

To read the inaugural issue of Tax Accounting Developments, go to Tax Analysts’ Web site.