Brevi considerazioni sui mutamenti in atto nei sistemi di contabilità pubblica

Abstract

The paper aims at providing a preliminary theoretical analysis of the accounting harmonization process involving the Italian Public Administrations (IPA). To achieve this objective, after a short review of the laws regulating the matter, the paper tries to determine whether and to what extent the proposed reform would actually be reconcilable to the concept of “accounting harmonization” as traditionally defined by the Italian and International accounting doctrine. The fundamental thesis of the article is that, since the Legislator asks for a complete uniformity of the budget, Accounting and reporting systems, it seems to direct the entire IPA not towards accounting harmonization but rather towards accounting unification. This first conclusion is fraught with serious consequences from a theoretical perspective since, on the one hand, the legislature opts for a solution not exactly inspired by the accounting culture of the countries that traditionally have used institutional, fiscal and administrative models of federal kind and, for the other, this choice seems satisfying more statistical and classification necessities than managerial ones. Therefore, the direction taken by the legislature makes the Italian case quite different from the well-established experiences of many other countries. Elsewhere the reform processes of public accounting are explained mainly by the attempt to assign to those measurement systems the function to increase the rationality of economic decision-making and evaluation processes both in and of the PA, trying to strengthen both the autonomy and the responsibility for the performance, profiles which in our case remain in the background.

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