A Study on the Financial Reporting of Governmental Long-Term Equity Investments

• Main Authors: Yen-hsi Hsieh, 謝燕僖
• Other Authors: Pei-How Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/80715611869709525785

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 企業管理學系研究所 === 98 === Governmental accounting in Taiwan was framed under considerations of budgetary compliance, and law compliance rather than users’ needs. The financial statement about governmental funds is organized based on separation guideline for fixed asset items. That means fixed assets are not listed on balance sheet in final accounting, but with the table of property contents. The Governmental Accounting Standard 10 accounting for long-term equity investments was issued by the Directorate-Generate of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of the Executive Yuan on 29 December , 2008. The accounting is totally different with the previous standards. The study is to work out the issues that may arise in implementing the Governmental Accounting Standard 10 . Since this standard hasn’t been implemented yet, the study is a exploring research. A survey of 2 professors of Accounting and 6 governmental accountants , both are professional in governmental accounting, was made by in-depth interview to understand their opinions about implementing the Standard 10. The conclusions are as follows： a. The Directorate-Generate of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of the Executive Yuan could inform that the way to identify the fair value is following GAAP. And amend the accounting system on the basis of the standard 10, then the new GBA . b. Measure the initial cost of the long-term equity investment According to section 17 of the Standard when first implementing the standard. Before that, there must be someone and somehow to confirm each government holds 20% or more of an investee company’s capital or stock with voting rights. c. The unrealized profit and losses from inter-transactions between an investor and investee being not eliminated doesn’t affect the reporting of true government financial condition. d. If a governmental investor has significant influence over an investee and intends to continue its support for the investee, the recognized investment losses should still be limited to the extent that makes the book value of the long-term equity investment equal to zero. And disclosing the exceeding losses by footnote. The accounting report under this procedure is still able to report the true government financial condition. e. The accounting report is enough to provide the useful information of budgetary compliance before implementing the Standard 10. But it provides more useful information of assessing the government financial condition, evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness in performing the policy, and allocating the restricted resources appropriately after implementing the Standard 10. keyword：governmental accounting, governmental accounting standards, long-term equity investments, government financial condition