Ohio.com reports that GM will miss a March 31 deadline for filing its first GAAP-compliant financial results since emerging from bankruptcy. According to an SEC 10k filing:

General Motors Company (the “Company�) is unable to file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009 (the “2009 Form 10-K�) by March 31, 2010, as the Company is still finalizing its fresh-start adjustments required by generally accepted accounting principles relating to the assets acquired and liabilities assumed from General Motors Corporation (“Old GM�) in connection with Old GM’s sale of assets under Section 363 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (the “363 Sale�) prior to such date. Due to the size of the Company, the global application of fresh-start reporting and the associated determination of the fair value of its assets and liabilities is a significant undertaking, which requires extra time

GM says it will be able to file within a 15 day extension period, which means there’s not too much longer to wait before we have our first “real” measure of GM’s post-bankruptcy performance. And because GM’s last results were accompanied by warnings that Q4 2009 results could be worse than November’s non-GAAP numbers (not to mention recent soft-pedaling by CFO Chris Liddell), there’s reason to believe that they won’t be particularly pretty. Either way, GM can only delay their release for so long. As 60 percent stakeholders in the artist formerly known as the world’s largest automaker, taxpayers have the right know just how their “investment” is panning out. I guess we’ll be seeing GM in line at the post office just before the midnight on the 15th.

Were you looking forward to GM’s first post-bankruptcy financial report, set to be released on Monday? We sure were. Right up until we read that the earning statement won’t be compliant with a little something called Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Automotive News [sub] reports that GM will use so-called “managerial accounting,â€� (do we have an accountant in the house?) until Q1 2010 results are filed using SEC-approved “fresh start accounting.” The SEC is apparently aware that GM is still transitioning to the post-bankruptcy accounting system, and has reportedly approved GM’s timetable for compliance. Meanwhile, GM’s 3rd quarter results will be announced in two parts, for the period it was in bankruptcy (June 1- June 9) and after (June 10- September 30). GM’s spokesperson is kind enough to explain:

In some cases, it’s not comparable to do a year-to-year comparison. Anything with a cost component to it, won’t be comparable. For sales and revenue, it will be comparable. It’s going to be kind of complicated this time around. There’s no way around that. It’s not a standard situation.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? You try and you try to be transparent, and then your financial results come out all unintelligible because it takes the better part of a year to switch accounting systems. No wonder Whitacre is downplaying talk of a Summer 2010 IPO.