The following article extract refers to the ‘goodwill glob’ and implies that it produces data that lack serviceability. Clarke and Dean (2011, p. 63) outline that there will come a time when challenges are made to the data used in company financial statements:
That ASIC has ‘let through’ . . . yields the financial indicators for which it is habitually used to determine. And the . . . answer will have to be ‘no’. That means it is neither true nor fair in any meaningful sense, for the products of many of the current standards fail miserably. They contain fictions.
(a) Provide a counterargument to that of the financial statements containing ‘fictions’.
(b) Each year ASIC conducts a surveillance program of companies’ financial reporting. Identify the areas that ASIC focused on in its most recent surveillance program.