Álit: tímarit löggiltra endurskoðenda - 01.01.1988, Page 32

FINANCIAL REPORTING IN
HYPERINFLATIONARY
ECONOMIES
Grein þessi er erindi sem David H. Cairns, fram-
kvæmdastjóri Alþjóðlegu reikningsskilanefndarinnar,
IASC, flutti á vegum FLE í Háskóla íslands í maímán-
uði síðastliðnum. í IASC News birtist svo nýlega grein
um reikningsskilaaðferðir hér á landi í framhaldi af
komu framkvæmdastjórans og er henni hnýtt aftan við
erindi hans.
Introduction
IASC was founded in 1973 by the accounting bodies
in nine countries. In the last fifteen years it has grown
quite considerably so that it now involves 100 account-
ing bodies in some 70 countries.
Our work also involves many other people other
than accountants. We have direct involvement from the
International Chamber of Commerce. We also have fi-
nancial analysts on our Board and, within our Consul-
tative Group, we have international organisations of
securities commissions, stock exchanges, trade unions,
financial executives, bankers, lawyers, the World
Bank, the OECD and the United Nations Centre on
Transnational Corporatoins.
Our job is to formulate and promote International
Accounting Standards and to work generally for the
improvement and harmonisation of financial reporting
on a worldwide basis. We have published 26 Interna-
tional Accounting Standards. These Standards are used
in a variety of ways in different countries around the
world.
The Globalisation of Capital Markets
One of the main thrusts behind our work is the glob-
alisation of world markets. We are all part of one glob-
al village; hence, there are pressures for what some
people call truly intemational standards of accounting
and disclosure. We are being pushed very hard at the
moment; hence, our main priority is to meet this need.
Financial Reporting In Hyperinflationary Econo-
mies
We also find time to deal with a number of other im-
portant areas. One of these is our project on Financial
Reporting in Hyperinflationary Economies. We started
this project about four years ago at the request of a
number of countries which were suffering from high in-
flation or as we have now called it „hyperinflation“.
We put together what we call a Steering Committee
that involves representatives from Argentina, Mexico
and Israel plus the United States and West Germany.
This Steering Committee developed some initial pro-
posals for the Board of IASC. These were circulated to
accountancy bodies in 1985. Last year we published an
Exposure Draft, E31, Financial Reporting in Hyperin-
flationary Economies, which sets out our latest propos-
als. The Steering Committee will consider the re-
sponses to the Exposure Draft at the beginning of No-
vember and we hope to approve an International
Accounting Standard next year.
The starting point for our proposals is something that
we were told by the Steering Committee representa-
tives from Argentina, Mexico, Israel; in hyperinflation-
ary economies, pure unadjusted historical cost financial
statements are meaningless and worthless.
What should happen in these sort of circumstances?
To answer this question, we need to go back to the sit-
uation that existed before hyperinflation existed. In
most countries, financial statements were based on
pure unadjusted historical costs. This means that assets
are carried at amounts based on what was paid for
them. Profit is measured by comparing what we sell
something for with what was paid for it. In practice, ac-
counting is more complicated than that but that is the
main thrust.
This system works reasonably well, indeed very well,
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