The Research On Asset Impairment Of Chinese Listed Companies

With the development of the capital markets, there is a growing concern about the usefulness of accounting information.During the past years,the development of the asset impairment accounting has regulated the conduct of enterprises to some extent, and greatly improved the quality of accounting information.However,due to loopholes in accounting policies, together with the special nature of asset impairment accounting itself,which gived the company considerable arbitrariness in the practical operation. As a result,the impairment of assets gradually become a tool of manipulation, which directly led people to question the credibility of accounting information provided by listed companies, against the original intention of the government making impairment policies.In 2006, the new Accounting Standards for Enterprises have made further specification on the confirmation, provision and return of asset impairment, the most prominent of which is to forbid the return of long-term asset impairment,and the aim is to restrain the listed companies manipulation by the asset impairment.Firstly,This article studied the theoretical basis of asset impairment accounting, theoretically analyzing the significance of asset impairment accounting.Then I learned from the U.S. standard-setting valuable experience by reviewing the development of its assert impairment accounting standards,and gave a preliminary evaluation on China's new assert impairment accounting standards in theory.And then I analysed the actual application with the specific cases of asset impairment of three listed companies between 2005 and 2008.Judging from the the reaction of the new standards,we found the the existence of listed companies useing impairment of assets for manipulation before.The new guidelines to a certain extent can play a role as regulate the behavior of impairment specification of assets in the further. However, for the policy still leaved room for listed companies, it didn't completely restrain of assets they use the impairment to manipulate profits. Finally, there is a conclusion about problems after the implementation of new guidelines for asset impairment accounting,mainly on the provision,return, disclosure and external supervision of asset impairment.And then I put forward corresponding countermeasures.According to the research, I think firstly we should strengthen the regulation about the scope of impairment provision and information disclosure, restricting the randomness of impairment from the roots. For the current assets impairment,we must have clear conditions of return. For long-term assets, since the prohibition of the return of impairment can not reflect the real value of the assets, and also can not completely restrain the abuse of impairment, so the return of long-term assets impairment should be gradually allowed. after the above problems are improved.At the same time, the proper guidance of the external supervision, as well as the enterprise's internal controls, are also needed to work together to create a favorable environment for healthy development of the our asset impairment accounting.