"It's one of the things I keep my owner apprised of," said Bill Van Voorhis, vice president of finance at ., a privately held, Knoxville, Tenn.-based equipment dealer.

While declining to give specifics, Van Voorhis said in an interview that Stowers has a "significant" LIFO reserve and would probably be among the losers if the accounting option were to be eliminated. "From a company standpoint, it definitely means that we'll have to pay more taxes," he said.

He added, "Some companies, especially mid-sized and smaller companies, would really struggle, especially in today's economy. You take money out of companies and that's less than we can invest in the operation." Of course, the magnitude of the hit could be reduced by a proper phase in, say of "five to seven years so we don't have to pay (LIFO reserves) out all at once."

He admits that LIFO isn't as big a deal as it was two or three decades ago, "when double-digit inflation" was raging. There still is underlying concern because of the indirect hit taken by companies such as his due to the recent spikes seen in oil and other commodity prices. And while his company does business domestically, multinationals have already had to perform much of the transition because of IFRS.

"It's a tradeoff," he said. Giving up some corporate tax breaks "in exchange for more reasonable tax rates is a noble cause. A more reasonable tax rate makes the US more competitive."