IFRS in Russia: its implementation, views of Prof. Ya.V. Sokolov and influence to local accounting
2 января 2011 18:09 Новости, Пресса о МСФО и их применении в РоссииSergey Moderov V.
Head of International Financial Reporting Department at audit and consulting firm the Institute for Enterprise Issues, Member of ACCA
Generalova Natalia V.
Ph.D. in Economics, Associate Professor of Department of Statistics, Accounting and Audit, Saint- Petersburg State University
МСФО в России: применение, отношение к ним со стороны Я.В. Соколова и их влияние на отечественный учет
IFRS in Russia: its implementation, views of Prof. Ya.V. Sokolov and influence to local accounting
The implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards in Russia has been discussed by the accounting profession for more than a decade. The united opinion of professionals is that those standards are an integral part of business life of enterprises and are included in statutory norms in Russia.
Presented article consists of a review of the experience of IFRS implementation in Russia during the period from 1989 to 2010. International standards influence to local accounting mostly by two ways: by insertion of its parts into legislative requirements and local standards as well as by direct IFRS financial reporting by significant amount of Russian enterprises, e.g. credit organizations, which are required to do so by statue of the Bank of Russia.
Adoption of Federal Law ‘On Consolidated Financial Statements’, as per the opinion of authors of presented article, brings legal status to IFRS financial reports, which in its turn tend to rise its quality, at least because of rising the responsibility of preparers in this field.
IFRS and ideas of British and American accounting school has influenced significantly Russian accounting system, and its consequences are yet to be discovered. Presented article provides chronological review of the most important articles by Professor Yaroslav Vyacheslavovich Sokolov (1938-2010), who was one of the first researchers who paid attention to consequences after implementation of IFRS in Russia.
As noted above, Russian accounting has been changed immensely during recent decade, mostly by conversion to IFRS under the influence of British and American accounting school.
Those key changes of Russian accounting system brought by British and American accounting school are as follows:
1) Change in the main user(s) of financial statements;
2) Implementation of ‘prudence’ and ‘true and fair view’ concept;
3) Use of ‘substance over form’ priority;
4) Importance of professional judgment;
5) Wide use of fair value;
6) Splitting of tax and financial accounting;
7) Splitting of management and financial accounting.
From the point of view of what is done already the perspectives of Russian accounting are as follows:
— continued assimilation of IFRS as well as British and American accounting school ideas into statutory norms and practice of Russian accounting;
— — spreading in use of consolidated financial statements;
— — becoming accounting profession more prestigious;
— — change in what the accounting profession is about and what the activities and the role of accountant consist of;
— — development of appraisal (valuation) profession as an important part of fair value accounting;
— — change of the whole system of education and trainings in the field of accounting and audit;
and
— — ‘legalization’ of management accounting providing it being auditable.
Authors tent to think that IFRS suits recent economy developments in Russia and, thus IFRS will be required more and more by its business, and, respectively, the accounting profession.
