Looking into the third quarter, companies should prepare to face new regulations, new accounting standards, and new tax rules that together promise to significantly transform financial reporting for public companies.

Change—and the pace of change—gave PricewaterhouseCoopers plenty of ground to cover in its recent quarterly Webcast on current accounting and reporting developments, said Steve Meisel, SEC services leader for the firm. The 90-minute Webcast provides a quick summary of key regulatory developments that are taking shape.

On the legislative front, PwC Partner Laura Cox Kaplan said financial regulatory reform still developing in Congress will lead to an untold number of regulatory rule-making requirements and studies that must be pursued by a host of regulatory agencies. New laws around derivatives trading alone will spark some 20 different regulatory rule-making requirements that must be completed in six months to a year after the legislation is ultimately adopted, she said.

In accounting standards, PwC Partner Sue Cosper said companies have already witnessed four major proposals in the second quarter and can expect several more in the third and fourth quarters. The Financial Accounting Standards Board has published exposure drafts on financial instruments, comprehensive income, fair value measurement, and revenue recognition, and is preparing more on leasing, insurance contracts, and contingencies. Most of the major proposals are tied to similar proposals emerging from the International Accounting Standards Board in a movement to converge U.S. and international accounting rules.

Despite the volume of material, Cosper said it’s important for companies to study the proposals and give some thought to how they would work in practice. “Be proactive in assessing each of these projects and how they will impact the company,” she said. “Form a point of view on each of the proposals and share it with the boards during the comment letter process.”

The boards recently modified their intended timeline to give companies a little more time to get involved, she said. “Companies should use the opportunity to do so,” she said.

Meisel said changes in accounting standards in particular have been on the horizon for a while, seemingly in the distant future. “But now they are starting to get a lot closer and potentially more real for all of us.”

The Webcast also provides updates on tax issues, including pending legislation and pending requirements for companies to disclose where they have uncertainty in their tax returns, plus XBRL, inflationary accounting, pension accounting, and more.

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