The Future of Financial Reporting: Removing It from the Shadows

Future developments in financial reporting, we believe, will need to be in the form of expansions beyond the basic financial statements, as we now know them. Any meaningful reform of the income statement and balance sheet alone is made difficult, if not impossible, by the constraints imposed by contractual provisions, information production costs, the always‐sensitive relationship between the auditor and the client, and top‐management's desire for smoothed and controllable earnings figures.