Accounting Entity’s Property And Recognition And Measurement Of Government Assets

Based on the perspective of the government balance sheet, this paper is aimed to discuss asset recognition and measurement issues caused by “government” accounting entity attributes.<CPC Central Committee on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform>, which has passed through in Eighteen Third Plenary Session clearly stated, “Accelerate the establishment of a unified national economic accounting system, and work out the national and local balance sheet.” Since 2012, many provinces and cities have been carrying out the government’s balance sheet, some experts and scholars have tried to compile the national balance sheet. But according to the information has been disclosed, the accuracy and reliability of these balance sheets still exists big problems, data quality was not high. The major reasons why there exists inconsistent data are unclear definition and scopes of “government” itself, so it’s difficult to define assets category and accounting subject, which leads to create different statistical assets. Present domestic researches are mostly concentrated on the path of reform, the introduction of accrual accounting and other liabilities measurement, and there are few researches on the “government” definition and assets confirmation under different accounting subject. This paper mainly focused on the recognition and measurement of assets under different accounting subject attributes started from “the government” concept, providing some new research ideas and suggestions for the actual problems faced in working out the government’s balance sheet.As the accounting entity, the “government” is different from the purely administrative perspective, “government” can be classified in terms of accounting entities into three levels: abstraction government from sovereign level(accounting entity of national natural resources balance sheet), government from administrative rights level(“national and local balance sheet” corresponding to central government and local governments at all levels), government from legal level(executive units which are the main bodies of accrual-basis accounting). At different levels, the meaning of the accounting subject is different, and the asset confirmation and measurement need to be combined with the specific accounting subject.This paper organizes research framework from theory to realistic, from overall to partial, and distinguish different attributes of “government” from accounting entity point, specifically discussing the recognition and measurement of assets in government’s balance sheet under different accounting entities assumptions.This article is divided into five chapters: Introduction is the first chapter which introduces the writing background, writing purpose and significance, research ideas, research methods and main content, the innovations and insufficient. The second chapter is domestic and international research literature review, related concepts and theoretical basis. Carding literatures and researches focused on accounting entity and recognition of assets from abroad and domestic aspects based on government balance sheets. Then it introduces the main concepts and theories involved in this paper. Relevant concepts include institutions legal property rights, accounting entity assumption, recognition and measurement of assets, etc. This chapter summarizes theoretical basis of this paper, such as public finance theory, public accountability theory, new public management theory. The third chapter analyzes the main attributes of government accounting. “Government” as the accounting entity, can be divided into three levels: abstraction government from sovereign level(accounting entity of national natural resources balance sheet), government from administrative rights level(“national and local balance sheet” corresponding to central government and local governments at all levels), government from legal level(executive units which are the main bodies of accrual-basis accounting). This chapter not only describes different accounting entity assumption meanings caused by different “government” accounting entity attributes, but also analyzes the impact of different “government” attributes corresponding to accounting entity assumptions on confirmation and measurement of assets. The forth chapter discusses specifically the recognition and measurement of government’s balance sheet assets under different accounting entities assumptions. This chapter analyzes the recognition of balance sheet assets along the following line: definition of government accounting entity, confirmation basis, recognition criteria, classification and measurement of the main elements. The fifth chapter, Conclusions and suggestions.