Yerkova U.

PhD Zhukova O.S.

PhD Petrachkova O.L.

Donetsk State University of Management

ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY IN THE USA

Accountants and bookkeepers work for business firms, government agencies, and many other organizations. In the USA public accountants are those who are available to the public for such accounting functions as monthly bookkeeping and tax preparation. Most states do not regulate the qualifications or performance of public accountants.

The only accountants permitted to offer opinions about financial state­ments should be Certified Public Accountants (CPAs), who have passed difficult national examinations. Accountants must also fulfil the require­ments of the state in which they practice including several years of varied experience within the profession. Provided a person is a certified ac­countant, he will be licensed by the state to perform accounting services to clients for a fee.

Business companies, banks and large corporations employ their own accountants to examine their accounts and prepare financial statements or maintain their own internal accounting departments. If a small company or business required to prepare some financial statements, it would hire the ser­vices of an outside accountant.

Most US CPA firms are relatively small and represent individuals and privately held businesses for whom they prepare financial statements and act as advisors on tax matters. The largest accounting firms in the United States are known as The Big Five and a large number of their offices are spread through­out the world and the nation's largest companies are their clients.

Of the various specialized areas of accounting that exist, the three most Important are:

1) auditing;

2) income taxation;

3) non-business or­ganizations.

Auditors are accountants who estimate the accuracy of a com­pany's financial statements, and if they find any disagreements in the documents with generally accepted accounting principles, they will be responsible to inform about them in their report.

Income taxation as the second area of accounting specialization includes determination of a company's taxes according to the existing laws. The tax accountant sometimes may be a lawyer, because if there had been any changes in tax law, he would have informed the company about it. The methods chosen to report assets and liabilities will influence the amount of tax to be paid, at least within the fiscal year.

A third area of specialization is accounting for non-business organiza­tions, such as universities, hospitals, churches, trade and professional associ­ations, and government agencies. These organizations differ from business companies in many items: 

1) they receive resources without paying for them;

2) they do not have profit orientation;

3) they have no defined ownership interests as such.

As a result, these organizations have a number of differences in record keeping, in accounting measurements, and in the form of their fi­nancial statements.

Literature

1.     Kieso and Weygandt. Intermediate Accounting. John Wiley &Sons, 1989. ISBN: 0-471-63098-5

2.     The development of SEC Accounting. Edited by G.J. Previts. Addisson-Wesley, 1981. ISBN: 0-201-05784-0

3.     Jan R. Williams. Miller GAAP Guide. Harcourt Brace Professional Publishing, 1996. ISBN: 0-15-601913-2

4.     L. Chasteen, R. Flaherty, M. O’Connor. Intermediate Accounting. McGraw-Hill, 1989. ISBN: 0-07-557638-4

5.     R. Baker, V. Lembke, T. King. Advanced Financial Accounting. McGraw-Hill, 1989. ISBN: 0-07-003366-8

6.     Comparative international accounting/ edited by Nobes C. and Parker R. Prentice Hall, 1995. ISBN: 0-13-328733-5

7.     Arrapan J., Radebaugh L. „International Accounting and multinational enterprises“. John Wiley & Sons, 1985. ISBN 0-471-88231-3

8.     Fox S., Rueschhoff N.G. „Principles of international accounting“ Austin Press, 1986. ISBN: 0-914872-22-2