International Accounting- The Ultimate Theory Course.

Abstract The typical accounting department offers from one to two dozen courses for the study only of American accounting. Now consider the problem of covering the accounting of all the remaining countries of the world in a single course. The magnitude of the subject effectively precludes any attempt at a purely descriptive or analytic approach. Instead, the writer has attempted to develop and present coherent patterns of international accounting variation. Emphasis has been placed on the forces and conditions which create international differences, rather than upon the differences themselves, and upon the varying responses to these forces in different countries. It is this framework, described below, that has suggested the course as a vehicle for the study of general theory. The common problems created in different countries by taxation of income provides another point of departure. Particular emphasis is given to the effects on accounting of tax devices which are more related to economic goals than to pure revenue production, such as the Swedish investment stabilization reserves and the now suspended investment allowances in Great Britain.