A Comparative Study On Sino-US Government Accounting System

The government accounting system in our country has been using the budget accounting model after the foundation of PRC.With the gradual improvements of the socialist market economic system in China and the transformation of the government’s functions, the government accounting is facing significant challenges, and lots of shortcomings of this system are being exposed under the new economic environment. From the practices of the government accounting reform in other countries, especially from the United States, we can find the government accounting in the United States is a relatively perfect kind of fund accounting system, of which there are many valuable items worth referencing for the accounting system of ours.In this article, the main research contents are as follows:Chapter 1, the introduction part, mainly summarizes the background situation, the goals, the significance and the ideas of the research into the government accounting system. The summary of the references from home and abroad are included as well. Chapter 2 introduced the basic theory of government accounting and the comparison with the enterprise accounting from four aspects, such as forms of accounting calculation, the structure of accounting elements, accounting statement and accounting settlement contents. Chapter 3 analyzes the development of the government accounting environment in our country, and raises the related issues as follows:the current cash basis isn’t fit for the balance of payments. There are not enough standard accounting regulations and the relevant laws. The government accounting information is not completely open to public in the accounting report. The chapter 4 introduced the development and current situation of the U.S. government accounting from several points, including accounting system, accounting regulation and accounting report. Chapter 5 compared the government accounting of China with that of the United States in detail from seven aspects, like accounting system, accounting model, accounting regulation setting, accounting elements, accounting reports, forms of accounting calculation, and accounting goals. The chapter 6 describes the future affection of this comparison on the government accounting in our country. We think that the model of our government accounting should be transformed from the budget accounting into the fund accounting gradually. The first thing is to mark the accounting report system and improve the quality of the government accounting information. Secondly, to set standard accounting regulations, set up more complete relevant laws. Thirdly, to build complete internal controls, adopt accrual basis as the basis of measurement, detailing the system of fixed assets depreciation, emphasize the requests of the accounting information users, and strengthen the accounting information disclosure.The purpose of this article is to discuss the development trend of our government accounting in the future through the study of the differences between China and the United States government accounting. There will be important theoretical significance and realistic significance to promote our government accounting system reform and improve the transparency of government accounting information.