The patrimony represents a specific category of any law subject. Each law subject is compelled to hold the bookkeeping of their own patrimony, and of the transactions and the financial operations that they have contracted.
We can no longer have doubts upon the relationship established between Law and accounting, because in present, we cannot speak of accounting without taking into consideration law. We can therefore present various arguments to express this relationship. Without having any interest in creating further disagreements between the two fields taken under consideration, we assert that the interdependence between law and accounting has the purpose of clarifying common aspects of their application.
We shall focus on some of the most important and solid arguments that bring together law and accounting.
From a classical point of view, we can define the object study of accounting as being the patrimony of the entity, which is in fact the cumulating of the rights and obligations of a patrimony titular. Accounting as a process highlights and studies the relationships between the patrimony titulars and the other law subjects.
In fact, the fundamental equality assets = liabilities was born out of the necessity of depicting and quantifying some exchange judicial reports.
Accountancy does not reflect only the "tangible reality" having either a material and/or an immaterial form but it also concerns judiciary abstractiveness.
In present some experts sustain the substance over form principle. According to this point of view the most important thing is not the property records regarding the property of assets, but the property of the assets of bringing future economical benefits.
This is a pragmatic approach, of Anglo-Saxon origin, present in the International Accounting Standards as well. All this ended up in substituting the patrimony with the financial position of the entity.
If from an economical point of view we can abdicate the concept of patrimony, from a juridical point of view this is impossible. But accounting and law are not irreconcilable form this point of view.
If the concept of patrimony suffers no change from an economical point of view, we shall have a serious theme for debating in the near future.
Firstly, the elaboration of a theory of outside balance sheet engagements will allow changes in the traditional approach (patrimonial approach) of both Law and Accounting allowing an improvement in their economical and financial sides.
Secondly, accounting is strongly normalised and regulated by specific laws in a large number of European countries. In a lot of cases we encounter detailed regulations regarding the accounting technique. Accounting regulations are subject to different juridical frameworks, specific to each and every country. Inevitably there are multiple interferences between accounting and law.
The entity is the field where the fiscal law, the company law and the commercial law interfere, both among themselves and with accounting as well.
For instance the establishment of the quantum of taxes makes object of special laws and/or regulations all over the world. Accountancy interferes more or less with the laws and regulations that we have mentioned above, depending on the connectivity degree of accountancy-fiscal laws. More and more experts agree to the conclusions that a total accounting-fiscal regulation discount is impossible to be accomplished.
Thirdly, if we consider accountancy from a conceptual point of view, as a science belonging to the group of social-administration sciences, we can observe that at an entity level there exists an interference with the juridical side in what the technical problems are concerned. Accounting is the resultant of the junction between administration and law.
The fundamental objective of accounting is to offer useful information to those showing interest, thus respecting the truthfulness of information, the legal regulations and the true and fair view principle.
Therefore the proper information given to the users of accounting information can be realized only by respecting the true and fair view principle. The true and fair view is understood in many accounting systems as respecting the professional and/or legal regulations. We also mention that presenting deliberately erroneous information of the financial statements draws penal responsibility upon those who are responsible in most of the European Union Countries.
Another argument for our research is that accounting information supplied constitutes a juridical proof in the juridical process both in criminal law and in civil law. Therefore, accounting offers writ-
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ten proof that can be used in the judicial accounting expertise.
Last but not least we can assert that the juridical structure of a company stands for different modalities do the bookkeeping. The accountability of shareholders, associates and adrninistrator are different form a partnership from a capital society.
Accounting can be appreciated as a social game. Any game has its one rule, but it has to respect a larger juridical framework. The law-accounting interference is quite consistent, and is the expression of connections between law subjects participating at this social game. The stake of the game is the quality
of information, where the rules are provided either by the written laws or by the custom laws, and where the field of action is the entity itself.
We can never separate completely accounting from law. The historical perspective gives proof of the countless interferences and remarkable symbiotic evolution of the two fields.
The evolution of the European space states, through the new enlargement of the European Union, a harmonization of the national regulation of both accounting and law to the comunitary Aquis, in order to obtain fluidity in the circulation of information and the free circulation of capital. ■
Lábjegyzetek:
[1] The Author is a Lecturer professor.
[2] The Author is a Lecturer professor, "Babes-Bolyai" University Cluj-Napoca, Rumania.
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