Evidence of the Long-term Influence of Local Regulations as a Challenge to the International Harmonization of Financial Reporting

• Autor(a) principal: Albuquerque, Fábio
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Gomes dos Santos, Paula
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/28675
• topic: harmonization, listed entities, NIC, POC, terms and expressions

The study aims to assess the potential long-term effects of the ‘accounting culture’ sedimented in POC on the materialization of the concepts in IAS and IFRS. Through the archive research as a method, the contents of the consolidated reports of the entities listed in the main Index of Euronext Lisboa for the most recent year (2020 or 2021, when available) were assessed. The financial reporting by the listed entities in Portugal, based on international accounting standards (NIC, in the Portuguese acronym), is still influenced by the terms and expressions from the Official Accounting Plan (POC, in the Portuguese acronym), the standard that was in force until 2009 (2004, for the listed entities), regardless of the activity sector. Thus, potential long-term effects of the previous local regulations on the financial reporting of these entities are identified, which is an element that can be presented as a challenge to a de facto harmonisation. The proposed analysis is expected to attract the attention of financial reporting standard setters and regulators to the potential constraints associated with the international harmonization of financial reporting, namely the specific environment of each jurisdiction where the International Accounting Standards (IAS) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have been applied. Studies of this nature allow broadening the discussion around the implementation of effective measures to reduce the constraints associated with the adoption and application of these standards, with the purpose of achieving higher levels of harmonisation or de facto convergence.