The European Harmonization of National Accounting Rules

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With Directive 2013/34/EU - which replaced the 4th and 7th accounting Directives - a new step towards European accounting harmonization has been taken: accounting rules on private firms have been further standardized and, at the same time, brought closer to IAS/IFRS. This book develops a comparative analysis of the most relevant issues in the process of preparing the financial statements after the recent transposition of the aforementioned Directive into the local accounting rules and standards. This book is of interest for several reasons. First, private firms, which are not necessarily small-medium sized companies, are the most prevalent and the engine of growth in all European countries. At the same time, the international academic literature is mainly devoted to listed companies, due to the limited availability of data for private companies and the idea that accounting information is less relevant for this kind of companies. In addition, the analysis contained in the book is the result of the work of more than 30 European researchers, who contributed to both a vertical analysis of eight countries (Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark) and a horizontal analysis of the most relevant cross-cutting issues (fundamental principles, financial statement formats, impairment losses, capital reserves and profit distribution, income taxes, and non-financial reporting). More specifically, the book aims to examine, from a comparative perspective, the methods of application of the Directive in Europe, in parallel with the evolutionary processes of national GAAPs, in order to verify the impact of both legal regulations and professional rules on the quality and comparability of accounting information, as well as the degree of convergence towards the IAS/IFRS model.