SEMESTER ONE, 2015 - ACCT304 ACCOUNTING THEORY
School of Business (Sydney) - Skill Assessment – Group Assignment
This is a group assignment. Each group must have either 2 or 3 people. LEO provides a discussion board where you may advertise and recruit team members. Choose your team members carefully. Students must notify the lecturer in a timely manner and provide substantiating documentation of any problems in relation to group work.
All assignments must be typed in Arial, size 11, 1½ spacing, justified (align to both left and right), have the standard cover sheet and be signed by the student(s) stating that the work is original. While referencing sources used for this assignment, you must follow the Harvard referencing style.
The maximum length for this assignment is 1,500 words. Students are advised that any materials submitted for assessment may be subjected to electronic checking for originality. The software used for checking originality compares works submitted by students with published material from a variety of sources, including the Internet.
Students must provide a hard copy of this assessment to the School Office (Level 10, 8 Napier Street, North Sydney), no later than 4:00pm of Friday, 15 May 2015.
Since 2000, many companies in Australia or U.S. collapsed due to misleading financial statements and accounting practices. New rules were introduced into IFRS or its local equivalent to improve the quality of financial reporting.
You should find and discuss at least one sample in which lack of regulation lead to deficiencies in financial reporting, and give a critical analysis to the impact of actual or proposed action by accounting standard setter. Your essay should explain the above and cover the following topics:
1. the arguments for and against regulation in respect of financial accounting in each related context;
2. in your opinion, whether regulation (such as revising the IFRS or its equivalent) could prevent misleading reporting practices;
3. the role of accounting profession and the enforcement bodies in Australia in promoting high quality financial accounting information.