La struttura del Comprehensive Income Statement: le indicazioni del progetto congiunto IASB-FASB Financial Statement Presentation

By | 2017-12-27T17:31:15+01:00 December 27th, 2017|

Pisani Michele/ Financial Reporting, Riviste / Fascicolo: 4-2011

Il progetto congiunto IASB-FASB Financial Statement Presentation si propone di definire l’impostazione di tutti i documenti necessari per formare un bilancio di esercizio che possa definirsi completo, ma grande attenzione è dedicata alla struttura del conto economico e alla rappresentazione del comprehensive income. Nel momento in cui i due corpi di principi contabili adottano un sistema misto di riconoscimento e di valutazione, fondato in parte sul costo storico e sul principio di realizzazione e in parte sul fair value e sulla logica delle variazioni patrimoniali, si pone il problema di valutare se la rappresentazione del reddito debba riflettere in modo neutro l’esistenza di questi due diversi paradigmi. Il lavoro esamina le soluzioni proposte nella struttura di conto economico al fine di esprimere su di esse un giudizio di merito alla luce delle indicazioni provenienti dai contributi teorici e dalle indagini empiriche svolte sull’argomento. Le innovazioni presentano indubbi vantaggi ma non risolvono le principali criticità legate alla rappresentazione del comprehensive income. L’incertezza che emerge dai contributi teorici ed empirici, che non consentono di individuare argomenti decisivi per basare le valutazioni esclusivamente sul reddito tradizionale o sul comprehensive income, rappresentano il principale argomento a supporto delle scelte conservative avanzate dai due board.

The IASB and the US FASB are presently involved in a joint project on financial statement presentation. After a discussion paper, published in October 2008, on July 2010 the boards decided to post a staff draft of proposed standard that reflect tentative decisions made to date, as a basis for extended stakeholder outreach activities. The objective of the financial statement presentation project is to establish a global standard that will guide the organisation and presentation of information in the financial statements, but the focus is on reporting comprehensive income. Since the IASB and the FASB accounting model mixes two income determination systems, namely, historical cost accounting and fair value accounting, an interesting question pertains to whether the display of comprehensive income should reflect the existence of these two paradigms. This article scrutinizes the proposed amendments to IAS 1 comprehensive income statement format while it reviews analytic, empirical and experimental research that addresses the presentation of income and the format of the income statement and presents the typical arguments made by proponents of historical cost net income and comprehensive fair value income. The research results are somewhat mixed, but they support the conservative decisions of the boards.

Keywords: comprehensive income, income statement, performance measure, earnings attributes, historical cost accounting, fair value accounting

 

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Lessons learned from the financial crisis – unveiling alternative approaches within valuation and accounting theory

By | 2017-12-29T17:41:03+01:00 December 27th, 2017|

Brosel Gerrit, Toll Martin, Zimmermann Mario/ Financial Reporting, Riviste / Fascicolo: 4-2012

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, one of the most topical research questions is what caused it. We argue that one of the causes is the insufficient theoretical background employed in most valuation cases. Over the last six decades, there has been constructive debate between the proponents of the various valuation theories. However, the advocates of the Anglo-Saxon valuation theory seem unimpressed by the outcomes, claiming that there is no viable alternative to their preferred theory. Consequently, they cling to unrealistic assumptions like perfect capital markets and pure competition, and thereby deepen the financial crisis by excusing overvaluation. This research presents an alternative, functional business valuation, to assist business valuation. It indicates that knowledge of the functional theory and its application might help prevent similar undesirable developments in the future. Another cause of the financial crisis, tightly connected to the cause mentioned above, lays in the (theoretical) construct of “fair value accounting” and its undesirable pro-cyclical effects. Such effects are generally considered a matter of fact, but have rarely been linked to the neo-classical Anglo-Saxon valuation theory and its major shortcomings until now. A further factor promoting the financial crisis is the assertion that there are no useful alternatives to fair value accounting and its apotheosis to the “mark-to-market approach”. A look into accounting history reveals at least one applicable alternative approach – the “historical cost principle”.

Keywords: Financial crisis, business valuation, fair value accounting, historical cost accounting

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