Ocena możliwości implementacji standardów IPSAS do systemu rachunkowości podmiotów sektora publicznego w Polsce

Abstract

Ocena możliwości implementacji standardów IPSAS do systemu rachunkowości podmiotów sektora publicznego w Polsce In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in activity in the field of standardization of public sector accounting, which has an international scope and takes the form of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). It has been planned that the EU Member States, and consequently Poland, will implement obligatory uniform accounting standards in the public sector – EPSAS – which are to be largely based on the content of IPSAS. The purpose of this paper is to assess the possibilities and factors of IPSAS implementation in the accounting system of public finance sector entities in Poland in relation to the currently applicable accounting regulations and the intelligibility criterion for potential users. The assessment was carried out based on a study of the foreign and domestic literature and existing legislation, while for the conclusions, the deductive and synthetic methods were used. The paper demonstrates that despite the relatively long period of operation of IPSAS, their level of implementation into the accounting system of public sector entities in Poland is negligible. The same applies to the works on the European standards, EPSAS, which have been significantly delayed in relation to the original assumptions. Knowledge of international standards is weak, and consequently their dissemination too. In spite of IPSAS implementation problems, there are still a number of reasons for their use. One of the arguments in favor of introducing uniform standards on the European market is the fact that the common market is in operation, and another one is the strong embedding of the need to consolidate the public sector’s international financial data at the central level of the Community. The conducted research confirmed the possibility of implementing IPSAS into Polish public sector entities’ accounting systems. However, that process should be connected with training and educational activities in the topic of IPSAS, and it is recommended that an authorized translation of IPSAS be made into Polish.