The Financial Value Of Cultural, Heritage And Scientific Collections: An Accounting Fiction

Abstract

That museum and like collections have cultural, heritage, scientific and educational values is widely appreciated. However, accounting standard setters in Australia and New Zealand have recently advocated that public arts institutions bring their collections to account as assets for financial reporting purposes. There are no similar requirements in the US, European Union (including the UK) and Canada; nor has the International Accounting Standards Board made such a recommendation. From surveys of current accounting practices, it is apparent that, by and large, arts institutions in the English‐speaking world do not report their collections for financial reporting purposes. This paper demonstrates that it is not technically proper to recognise cultural, heritage and scientific collections as assets for financial reporting purposes.