Malcolm Gladwell made the “tipping point” concept famous in his book by the same name a few years ago (a great read, by the way). He describes a tipping point as “the level(s) at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.”

Ever since FIN 46R and FIN 48 came along (from which we were requesting relief from the Private Company Financial Reporting Committee), the voices of private company preparers and auditors have gotten louder and louder, expressing concerns that GAAP has become too complex and costly for private companies to keep up with.

That is why we applaud the efforts of the Financial Accounting Foundation, FASB, AICPA and NASBA for addressing this issue in the FAF Blue Ribbon Committee on Private Company Financial Reporting.

More than 74 percent of members attending our professional issues updates / town hall meetings support separate private company standards. We included their responses in our letter of comments sent on Sept. 15, which became response No. 129 on the FAF website in answer to the questions posed by the committee.

You can read our entire comment letter here.

Plenty of others commented, including FEI (read more on their blog here) and several state CPA societies and plenty of CPA firms, for a total of 140 comment letters.

What do you think? Are we reaching the tipping point? Is this an idea whose time has come?