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Regulation Standardising Accounting Practice

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University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers Faculty of Business 2006 Regulation: Standardising Accounting Practice M. Gaffikin University of Wollongong, gaffikin@uow.edu.au Publication Details This working paper was originally published as Gaffikin, M, Regulation: Standardising Accounting Practice, Accounting & Finance Working Paper 06/22, School of Accounting & Finance, University of Wollongong, 2006. Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: research-pubs@uow.edu.au 06/22 University of Wollongong School of Accounting & Finance Regulation: Standardising Accounting Practice …show more content…

Thus, it was seen as necessary to maintain the integrity of the profession of accounting as the capacity to effectively self regulate was viewed as one of the hallmarks of a profession. The accounting profession, therefore, remained very private enterprise in keeping with the ideology of capitalism. But, the state did intervene in creating the SEC as one of its functions was the oversight of the published accounting information of publicly listed corporations. However, after much debate between the SEC and the profession it was decide that the SEC would leave the profession to develop principles of accounting practice which would eventually become generally acceptable as a standard of professional performance. As indicated in the previous chapter, there have been varying interpretations placed on the reason for the state’s intervention in creating the SEC and why the SEC delegated its accounting responsibility to the profession. Taken together, both the creation of the SEC and the profession’s serious attempts at effective self-regulation would tend to suggest that they were necessary to preserve capitalism from the public disenchantment that marked the great depression. These developments in the 1930s greatly affected processes of accounting regulation in the United States. Questions surrounding the issues involved continued for many

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