1st Edition

Accounting Standards: True or False?

By R.A. Rayman Copyright 2006
    240 Pages 64 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    240 Pages 64 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Following a spate of high-profile financial scandals (including Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat), the quality of financial information has come under increasing scrutiny. Many of the accounting standards being imposed on the profession by regulators and standard-setting bodies are now attracting criticism from the business community and the accountancy profession itself.

    In this book, Anthony Rayman traces a fundamental flaw in the conventional academic wisdom back to the nineteenth century, and proposes an alternative conceptual framework. He argues that effective corporate governance can be achieved, not by expensive and counterproductive regulations (like the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act and some International Accounting Standards), but by an enhanced accounting information system that exposes corporate management to the full rigour of market forces.

    Foreword (by Dr. Allister Wilson, Senior Technical Partner and Head of International Financial Reporting in the UK firm of Ernst & Young LLP)   Introduction   Part I: The Noble Art of Counting Beans   1. Stewardship reporting: the physical dimension   2. Business accounting   3. Performance reporting: the value dimension   Part II: The Measurement of Income and Value   4. Economic income and accounting profit   5. The inflation accounting 'debate'   6. Historical cost or current value?   Part III: A Theoretical Blind Alley   7. Value change: a wrong turning?   8. Asset valuation: a convenient distraction?   9. Fair value accounting: a dead end?   Part IV: Back to Basics   10. What's wrong with investment theory?   11. The 'threshold of measurement'   12. The fatal conceit of managerial capitalism   13. What's wrong with accounting standards?   Part V: The Segregation of Funds and Value   14. Financial performance and the investment rate   15. A segregated system of funds and value accounting   16. Management and the auditor: A question of public accountability   Part VI: Truth in Accounting   17. Elimination of the expectation gap   18. Reconstruction of the conceptual framework   19. Accounting truth and economic reality   Appendices  A: 'Economic income': the fatal flaw B: The 'accountant's rate of profit' (ARP) and the 'internal rate of return' (IRR)  C: The present value fallacy: a graphical representation  D: The vital distinction between funds and value

    Biography

    Rayman, R.A.

    'This is a thought-provoking book that challenges the current direction of accounting standards and proposes an interesting alternative. Its novel perspective on financial reporting provides a framework for debating some of the key contemporary issues facing the accountancy profession.' Colin Drury