Research On The Theoretical Framework Of Government Accounting In My Country

Accounting information, which reflects the financial status and the running performance of the government, is an important part of the administrative information of the government. It is also an important source for the citizens to learn the status of government assets, allocation of the public sources and how efficient it is in using of these public resources. Quality of the accounting information affects the effectiveness of and efficiency of public resources allocation, which eventually affects the credibility of the government. With the ongoing transformation of China's governmental function, and the improvement of the public finance system, the current budgetary accounting system cannot fulfill the requirements of the public management under the new trend. Both the theorists and practitioners pay more and more attention to this problem. Particularly, there is increasingly strong voice for a new government accounting system. Therefore, it is an important task to study on the framework of the government accounting theory, and to provide theoretical assistance for the government accounting systems in China, and this is the purpose of this paper.Based on the theory of public accountability and fund accounting, and the existing research literature, this paper analyzes the main problems of the current budgetary accounting system and the causes of the problems, and systematically researches the special political and economic environment and its impact on the construction of government accounting system in China. Finally, through drawing on international experiences related to government accounting, this paper puts forward the framework of the government accounting theory and the specific implementation of relevant measures. This paper includes seven chapters.Chapter I is introduction. The chapter introduces the background information of the topic, the significance of the study, defines the basic concepts of the government accounting and the theoretical framework of government accounting, and introduces the theories of public accountability and fund accounting, the main contents, research methods and innovations. Taking public accountability as a theoretical basis and our Constitution as a legal basis, the paper holds that Government Accounting is arising from and persistent of the supervision of government activities by National People's Congress in the process of the public resources entrusted to the government.Chapter II is "A Review of Research both domestic and abroad". This chapter introduces the study of the public accountability, the reformation of government accounting, the theoretical framework of government accounting, and comments thereof. This paper holds that the construction of the theoretical framework of government accounting in China should be the eventual aim of the research.Chapter III is "China's current budgetary accounting framework and its problems". This chapter analyzes the formation process of the current budgetary accounting framework and its contents, and points out the main problems, which are: (1) the accounting objectives are limited to the management of government itself; (2) the accounting entities are not conducive to reflect the fiduciary duty of the government; (3) quality characteristics of the accounting information are replaced by general principles; (4) the accounting basics do not reflect the government assets and liabilities; (5) co-existence of multiple systems of accounting elements with very limited coverage; and (6) accounting report system with many defects.Chapter IV is "analysis of budgetary accounting environment and its impacts ". This chapter analyzes the special political and economic environment of the budgetary accounting system and its major impact on the construction of the theoretical framework of our government accounting. The impacts include:the current budgetary accounting system is subject to reformation; the new government accounting should take five-tier government as accounting entities, take accrual as accounting basics, redesign the financial report system, objectively and comprehensively reflect the public accountability by the budgetary execution, management performance and financial status.Chapter V is "the theoretical framework of government accounting in Western countries (Organizations) and its enlightenment". Taking the U.S. and the International Public Sector Accounting Board for example, this chapter analyzes the government accounting framework of western countries and organizations, and draws the enlightenment to build our government accounting framework. Based on all these experiences, the conclusions are:(1) the structuring of the framework should be the first step, so that we may avoid unnecessary detours; (2) the framework should take both the condition in China and the internationalized standards into consideration; (3) fund accounting is advisable; (4) different accounting basis can be integrated; (5) the dual goals of both financial accounting and budgetary accounting should be taken into account.Chapter?is "construction of the theoretical framework of government accounting in china". This chapter systematically constructs our theoretical framework of government accounting, and provides valuable references to the construction of the theoretical framework of government accounting in China in the future. The framework of government accounting that the paper advocates includes: (1) The aim of the government financial report should be to reflect the pubic accountability and to fulfill the requirements of macroeconomic management of the state. Specifically, the report should reflect budget execution, government financial position, government activity and performance, as well as management of state-owned resources; (2) the body of bookkeeping include the important organs of the state, and the institutions controlled by the government, and those whose financial resources are provided by the government and whose function is to provide public services. The public financial funds and the other funds entrusted should be classified into government funds, equity funds and fiduciary funds. All three types of funds and five-tier government should be viewed as the reporting entity; (3) The characteristics that may indicate the reliability of the accounting information are reliability, relativity, intelligibility, timeliness, importance, comparability, consistency, among which reliability and relativity are the foremost requirements; (4) the basics of accounting should integrate both accounting basis, that is for daily accounting, the cash basis should be adopted as it can be used for budget management and control, and for preparation of the final report, accrual basis should be adopted as it may reflect the government financial status and can be used for performance management; (5) The accounting elements should be set as two systems. The fund accounting for the purpose of budgetary management should include fund assets, fund liabilities, fund balance, fund income and fund expenditure. The financial accounting elements should include assets, liabilities, income, expenditure and net assets; (6) the accounting report follows the fund theory and report sample of GASB of the U.S., and the report should also include the five-tier government and the fund report. The new government accounting framework this article proposed highlights its integration with the current budgetary accounting report.Chapter VII is "research findings and future research directions". This chapter provides a summary of the conclusions of this article, and points the inadequacy of this article is that the research methodoloty is not sufficiently rich, and it is not sufficiently intensive with respect to the macro environment of government accounting study. The article also points out that further study should focus on the macroeconomic environment of the government accounting.