A comparison and contrast of German and international financial reporting issues. Fair Value Accouting - current issues and possible solutions

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Accounting and Taxes, grade: 1.7, University of Bayreuth (School of Law, Economics and Business Administration ), course: 'business taxation and auditing' , language: English, abstract: Huge changes arose in the world of economy during the last decade. Due to globalisation and competition for scarce capital1 a heightened discussion regarding different national accounting policies emerged. There has been an intensive controversy between continental-European and Anglo-American based accountancy. All companies listed on a stock exchange in the EU are obliged to present their group accounts in accordance with IAS/IFRS2 from 2005 on. One crucial aspect of IRFS focuses on the increasing tendency to recognise a fair value which implies a departure from historical cost-based financial statement to a rather market value-based one. Subsequently, this paper introduces and compares the current valuation bases of the German commercial/tax law and IRFS. Because of the increasing importance of IFRS the major point reflects this consideration. Finally, contrasts will be emphasised and opportunities for a complete takeover of an advanced fair value accounting to German accountancy will be examined. For this reason a reference to the general objectives and principles both of the accountancies is inevitable and will be introduced in either case.