Group Ass AFA Essay

Principles of Microeconomics, Fifth Canadian Edition by N. Gregory Mankiw, Ronald D. Kneebone, and Kenneth J. McKenzie Associate Vice President, Editorial Director: Evelyn Veitch Editor-in-Chief, Higher Education: Anne Williams

By Thomas Ahrens (London School of Economics), and Christopher Chapman (University of Oxford), from The Contemporary Accounting Research Vol. 21 No. 2 (Summer 2004) pp. 271–301.

It is an important function of any organisation to regulate the external financial reporting. The legislation that governs the external financial reporting is Financial reporting act 2013 (FRA) and The companies act 1993 (Deegan & Samkin, 2013). The Regulation is required to safeguard the interests of those using the financial information but do not directly participate in the business. These users may be both primary and secondary. The information provided by the financial statements are used for making economic decisions by its users (NZASB, 2016a). The regulation of external financial reporting does not only help the external users

SFAC No. 8 addresses the cost constraint on useful financial reporting, “Cost is a pervasive constraint that standard setters, as well as providers and users of financial information, should keep in mind when considering the benefits of a financial reporting requirement.” (SFAC No. 8 BC 3.47) However, the ability to place a dollar value and fully enumerate a cost or benefit is almost an impossible task for standard-setters. Additionally, there is no way to successfully identify and measure all of the economic consequences associated with a new standard. The FASB should be applauded though for advancing uniformity in accounting standards, however; uniform financial reporting suggests a one size fits all approach. “Smaller, non-publicly listed firms (and their auditors) argue that accounting standards are formulated mainly for larger, publicly traded firms” and that “compliance costs are disproportionately higher and the

Upon reviewing your post, the insights I gain are the importance of companies following the rules and regulations enforced by The Securities and Exchange commission (SEC). In addition to the (SEC) financial accounting are also monitor by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) regulate the financial statements issued to shareholders. Zimmerman, J. L. (2014). I also realized the importance of companies making certain that the financial information posted, is accurate. By doing so, they help others such as stockholders and investors to make decisions that will be most beneficial to them.

Datar, S., Rajan, M., (2013). Financial and Managerial accounting, custom edition, Pearson Learning Solutions, Ch. 9

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS SESSION 1, 2008 ECONllOl MICROECONOMICS I FINAL EXAMINATION TIME ALLOWED - 2HOURS

The act requires management to disclose all material information or changes within their accounting processes. By requiring senior management to review the reports they are held accountable for the financial accounting of the firm, and procedures to prevent employees and other members within an organization from committing fraud or theft and management is legally responsible if material misstatements have been made. By making management accountable then they are less likely to commit fraud if faced with jail time. Management and stockholders frequently have different goals. Management often wishes to expand and use the company’s assets in different ways than a stockholder. Management’s accountability of the financial reports often helps encourage management to use company assets in appropriate ways. Disclosures were also a reduction in risk of fraud because all material information must be disclosed. By requiring this disclosure if a company’s net income increased this year due to a

Kimmel,Paul D,Weygand, J, Donald E. Kieso (2008). Accounting. 3rd ed. New York : George Hoffman. Page 1010.

Legitimacy in accounting practices is ensured by the check and balance of having independent auditors from registered public accountant firms reviewing financial practices. The report features eleven sections and these sections pertain to accounting overview, independence of auditors to reduce interest conflicts, corporate responsibility, financial disclosures, tax returns, criminal fraud and various elements of white collar criminal activity (107th Congress

The author of the article, Over-regulated America, displays the burden over-regulation can have on a country’s free-market economy. For example, one of the downfalls of over regulation is these new rules, or laws, are too complex. With complexity, comes high costs and deception, as mentioned earlier. The “Sarbanes-Oxley law made it so difficult to list shares on an American stock market that firms increasingly look elsewhere” and these regulations, in general, added a “cost of $10,585 per employee” (The Economist). As a result, this took away from a corporation’s right to gain financial support from investors, as well as causing unemployment due to the high per-employee costs of the act. I agree with this in the sense that regulation laws must have a greater simplicity to them so that they can be understood by a majority, while still allowing the perks of a free-market economy to run their course. Additionally, if a law is too complex, this can lead to deception if it can only be comprehended by a handful of individuals, when the law may affect everyone within the economy. The key here is to find a balance, between governmental regulation and promoting a capitalistic

As the business environment grows and companies find new ways to expand into their respective - or even new – markets, it is important that reporting standards stay up to date with changes and continue to assist companies in providing their users with useful accounting information. Information is labelled as being useful when it meets the

Secondly, the claim made by ‘free market’ perspective to treat accounting information as other normal goods should be rejected because accounting information are unlike normal goods such as bread or house. It is a public good because the use of it by one investor does not prevent the usage of others (Hendriksen & Breda 1992, p.247). As non-investors have right to use the accounting information such as income statement and balance sheet as much as investors, investors will not agree to pay for the financial reports because others will become free-rider; thus, this prevent the function of normal pricing system of accounting information. As no income is received by producers of financial reports, they will not willing to produce it or will underproduce it so ‘free-market’ perspective is not applicable. Under this circumstance, Demski and Feltham (cited in Deegan 2009, p.65) states that for public good like accounting information, a more collective approach to its production is more desirable. This can be achieved by legislatively regulating the productions of accounting information so companies will produce the accounting information to meet the demands of external users and thus ensuring efficient capital market.

Regulation is a topic that has been debated for many years and will continue to be debated for years to come. In the business and finance sector, there are many regulators including but not limited to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), Financial Reporting Council (FRC), Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB). While these are only a few regulatory bodies in the industry, they all have their own set of regulations to enforce. ASIC, for example, regulate the Corporations Act 2001 along with the Australian Accounting Standards. While ASIC ensure that organisations adhere to the regulations laid out before them, the AASB create and develop those

An important function of the accounting field is to provide external users of financial statements with assurance that the financial information being presented is both reliable and accurate. This basic function of accounting is so important that there is an entire field of experts, called auditors, dedicated to assuring its proper performance. Throughout history there have been many instances in which the basic equilibrium between an institution and current/potential investor has been threatened due to a lack of accountability and trust between the two parties. This issue has been the catalyst for many discussions regarding the proper procedures a firm should follow in order to provide