Provisões, passivos contingentes e activos contingentes

A adopção do Sistema de Normalização Contabilística constitui um marco muito importante na organização da contabilidade das empresas portuguesas. As inovações trazidas por este normativo e o maior pormenor de algumas matérias contabilísticas levam a que temáticas que eram pouco abordadas suscitem agora um maior interesse. Neste sentido, o presente trabalho, assente na Norma Contabilística e de Relato Financeiro (NCRF) 21, pretende demonstrar as alterações e melhorias trazidas por esta norma no reconhecimento e divulgação das provisões, passivos contingentes e activos contingentes, tendo como referências comparativas o anterior normativo contabilístico, o Plano Oficial de Contabilidade (POC). Através da presente dissertação pretende-se compreender a aplicação da norma ao nível do relato financeiro, através da análise dos Relatórios e Contas de 2010 e 2009 de empresas do sector da Construção. Pelo estudo realizado pode constatar-se que o cumprimento da NCRF 21 trouxe aperfeiçoamento no reconhecimento e divulgação das provisões, e principalmente na divulgação das contingências, praticamente omitidas com o POC. No entanto, deve destacar-se a subjectividade implícita nas provisões, sendo ainda, uma norma de difícil aplicação pela sua ambiguidade. Deve também realçar-se a importância da NCRF 3 - Adopção pela primeira vez das Normas Contabilísticas e de Relato Financeiro, que implicou uma reexpressão das contas de saldos de abertura em 2010 de acordo com o novo referencial contabilístico, o que obrigou as empresas a rever as provisões constituídas até à data Uma breve revisão bibliográfica referente ao tema da problemática fiscal foi ainda realizada.

A demonstração dos fluxos de caixa nas instituições particulares de solidariedade social

Dada a atual conjuntura económica internacional, a Economia Social tem vindo a aumentar consideravelmente a sua importância. Desta forma, torna-se importante conhecer o normativo contabilístico que é aplicado em Portugal. No caso concreto das Entidades do Setor Não Lucrativo, surgiu a necessidade de se encontrarem formas mais eficientes de gerir os recursos para dar resposta às necessidades sociais emergentes, e por isso, estas entidades foram, em 2011, enquadradas num novo contexto legal. O sucesso, o crescimento e a sobrevivência de uma entidade dependem da sua capacidade para gerar fluxos de caixa e/ou obter os recursos financeiros necessários ao desenvolvimento da sua atividade. Neste sentido, é a Demonstração de Fluxos de Caixa (DFC) que fornece aos seus utilizadores uma base para avaliar a capacidade da entidade gerar e utilizar os seus fluxos de caixa. Esta dissertação aborda uma área de estudo, ainda pouco investigada, a Economia Social e, em particular, as Instituições Particulares de Solidariedade Social (IPSS), sendo notório que o interesse por esta área tem vindo a acentuar-se nos últimos anos. Assim, fazendo o respetivo enquadramento teórico e normativo, avalia-se a importância da DFC, mais especificamente, a importância do relato dos fluxos nas IPSS. Para a realização desta dissertação, foi feita a análise em profundidade do relato da DFC nas IPSS, recorrendo à metodologia qualitativa, nomeadamente, à investigação descritiva, aos métodos e técnicas de recolha de dados, e, por último, à análise de conteúdo para tratar os dados qualitativos, tais como, as entrevistas. Para tratar alguns dados estatísticos foi utilizado o Microsoft Excel do Microsoft Office. A presente dissertação demonstra que o relato dos fluxos da DFC é extremamente importante, pois proporciona informação financeira que é importante no processo de tomada de decisão e na avaliação do desempenho financeiro das IPSS.

Reporting earnings per share: Evidence from Portuguese annual reports

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Policies, policy-makers and financial flows: An empirical examination

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Reporting comprehensive income: Evidence from Portuguese listed companies

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

The financial system in Mozambique: Opportunities, barriers and market potential

This research is empirical and exploratory intending to analyse the attractiveness of banking in Mozambique, considering its positive outlook. To identify the opportunities and barriers, the methods adopted were elite interviews with banking executives, complemented by secondary data. The opportunities for new entrants seem to include bankarization and the emergence of micro and smallmedium enterprises; other avenues seem to include investment banking, support of mega-projects (e.g. energy, infrastructures) through syndicates and cooperation with multilaterals, and the participation in developing capital markets. Conversely, the main barriers include shortage of talent, inadequate infrastructures, poverty, unsophisticated entrepreneurial culture (e.g. informal economy, inadequate financial reporting), burdensome bureaucracy (e.g. visas), foreign exchange regulation, as well as low liquidity and high funding costs for banks. The key conclusions suggest a window of opportunity for niche markets, and new products and services in retail and investment banking.

Graph usage in financial reports: Evidence from Portuguese listed companies

When assessing investment options, investors focus on the graphs of annual reports, despite lack of auditing. If poorly constructed, graphs distort perceptions and lead to inaccurate decisions. This study examines graph usage in all the companies listed on Euronext Lisbon in 2013. The findings suggest that graphs are common in the annual reports of Portuguese companies and that, while there is no evidence of Selectivity Distortion, both Measurement and Orientation Distortions are pervasive. The study recommends the auditing of financial graphs, and urges preparers and users of annual reports to be wary of the possibility of graph distortion.

Comprehensive income: evidence from Portuguese listed companies on reporting choices and value relevance

This work project aims at analysing choices related to Comprehensive income (CI) of Portuguese listed firms and understanding the reasons behind them. Additionally, it studies the relevance of CI versus Net Income (NI). It was found that firm’s size and volume of Other comprehensive income (OCI) are positively related with the choice for separate statements while smaller firms with positive NI and negative OCI tend to disclose less information about taxes. The value relevance of CI proved to be superior to that of NI but OCI seems to have no incremental value relevance.

A perceção dos colaboradores do Grupo Conceito sobre o Relato de Negócio

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Contabilidade

The Timing of Asset Trade and Optimal Policy in Dynamic Open Economies

Using a standard open economy DSGE model, it is shown that the timing of asset trade relative to policy decisions has a potentially important impact on the welfare evaluation of monetary policy at the individual country level. If asset trade in the initial period takes place before the announcement of policy, a national policymaker can choose a policy rule which reduces the work effort of households in the policymaker’s country in the knowledge that consumption is fully insured by optimally chosen international portfolio positions. But if asset trade takes place after the policy announcement, this insurance is absent and households in the policymaker’s country bear the full consumption consequences of the chosen policy rule. The welfare incentives faced by national policymakers are very different between the two cases. Numerical examples confirm that asset market timing has a significant impact on the optimal policy rule.

The effects of poor financial information systems on the long term sustainability of local public services. Empirical evidence from the Catalan Municipalities

In this paper we describe the existence of financial illusion in public accountingand we comment on its effects for the future sustainability of local publicservices. We relate these features to the lack of incentives amongst publicmanagers for improving the financial reporting and thus management of publicassets. Financial illusion pays off for politicians and managers since it allowsfor larger public expenditure increases and managerial slack, these beingarguments in their utility functions. This preference is strengthen by the shorttime perspective of politically appointed public managers. Both factors runagainst public accountability. This hypothesis is tested for Spain by using anunique sample. We take data from around forty Catalan local authorities withpopulation above 20,000 for the financial years 1993-98. We build this databasis from the Catalan Auditing Office Reports in a way that it can be linkedto some other local social and economic variables in order to test ourassumptions. The results confirm that there is a statistical relationship between the financialillusion index (FI as constructed in the paper) and higher current expenditure.This reflects on important overruns and increases of the delay in payingsuppliers, as well as on a higher difficulties to face capital finance. Mechanismsfor FI creation have to do among other factors, with delays in paying suppliers(and thereafter higher future financial costs per unit of service), no adequateprovision for bad debts and lack of appropriate capital funding either forreposition or for new equipments. For this, it is crucial to monitor the way inwhich capital transfers are accounted in local public sheet balances. As a result,for most of the Municipalities we analyse, the funds for guaranteeing continuityand sustainability of public services provision are today at risk.Given managerial incentives at present in public institutions, we conclude thatpublic regulation recently enforced for assuring better information systems inlocal public management may not be enough to change the current state of affairs.

Os impostos diferidos no contexto Cabo-Verdiano: Impacto nas demonstrações financeiras

A contabilização dos impostos diferidos surge do facto da legislação fiscal e das normas contabilísticas poderem ser diferentes no que respeita ao reconhecimento e mensuração de activos, passivos, gastos e rendimentos. Para eliminar o efeito das diferenças de carácter temporal, das demonstrações financeiras, foram criadas normas contabilísticas que disciplinam a contabilização do imposto sobre o rendimento, através do reconhecimento de activos e passivos por impostos diferidos. Seguindo esta tendência, Cabo Verde introduziu, através do SNCRF - Sistema de Normalização contabilística e de relato financeiro, a NRF 22Imposto sobre o rendimento, que exige a contabilização de impostos diferidos nas diferenças temporárias entre a contabilidade e a fiscalidade. No entanto esta norma não está sendo observada, devido, na opinião de vários profissionais da área, a complexidade do assunto “imposto diferido”. Por esta razão, traçamos como objectivos deste trabalho, explicar a problemática dos impostos diferidos, evidenciando a importância do seu reconhecimento nas demonstrações financeiras. Concluímos que, a não contabilização de impostos diferidos pode pôr em causa a informação contida nas demonstrações financeiras e, consequentemente, as decisões que se toma com base nelas.The accounting of deferred taxes arises from the fact that tax legislation and accounting standards may differ regarding to the recognition and measurement of assets, liabilities, expenses and income. To eliminate the effect of the temporary differences in the financial statements, accounting standards have been established to regulate the accounting of income tax trough the recognition of assets and liabilities by deferred taxes. Following this trend, Cape Verde has introduced through the SNCRF - Standardization System of Accounting and Financial Reporting, the standard NRF 22 - Income Tax, which demands the recognition of deferred taxes in the temporary differences between accounting and taxation. However according to the opinion of some professors, this standard is not being observed due to the complexity of the subject "deferred tax". For this reason, we defined the following objectives for this work: explain the issue of deferred taxes, evidencing the importance of its recognition in the financial statements. We have concluded that, the not accounting of deferred taxes may jeopardize the information contained in the financial statements and consequently, the decisions made based on them.

Rethinking the effects of financial liberalization

During the last few decades, many emerging markets have lifted restrictions on cross-borderfinancial transactions. The conventional view was that this would allow these countries to: (i)receive capital inflows from advanced countries that would finance higher investment and growth;(ii) insure against aggregate shocks and reduce consumption volatility; and (iii) accelerate thedevelopment of domestic financial markets and achieve a more efficient domestic allocationof capital and better sharing of individual risks. However, the evidence suggests that thisconventional view was wrong.In this paper, we present a simple model that can account for the observed effects of financialliberalization. The model emphasizes the role of imperfect enforcement of domestic debts and theinteractions between domestic and international financial transactions. In the model, financialliberalization might lead to different outcomes: (i) domestic capital flight and ambiguous effectson net capital flows, investment, and growth; (ii) large capital inflows and higher investmentand growth; or (iii) volatile capital flows and unstable domestic financial markets. The modelshows how these outcomes depend on the level of development, the depth of domestic financialmarkets, and the quality of institutions.

Governance by Contract? The impact of the International Finance Corporation's Social Conditionality on Worker Organization and Social Dialogue

This study considers the question of the relationship between private labour regulation and workers' capacity to take collective action through the lens of an empirical study of the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) 'performance standards' system of social and environmental conditionality. The study covered some 150 IFC client businesses in four world regions, drawing on data made public by the IFC as well as the results of a dedicated field survey that gathered information directly from workers, managers and union representatives. The study found that the application of the performance standards system has had remarkably little impact on union membership and social dialogue. In those few cases where change could be causally linked to the standards, the effect depended on the presence of workers' organizations that already had the capacity to take effective action on behalf of their members. The study also uncovered some prima facie evidence of breaches of freedom of association rights occurring with no reaction from IFC. The study concludes that the lack of impact is largely due to the private contractual structure that supposedly guarantees standards compliance.

Rahoitusvälineiden arvostus - Kirjanpidon ja verotuksen erot

Tämän tutkimuksen aiheena on tarkastella rahoitusvälineiden arvostamista suomalaisessa kirjanpidossa, verotuksessa ja IFRS (International Accounting Reporting Standards) -standardeissa. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää suomalaisen kirjanpidon ja verotuksen eroavaisuudet IFRS-standardeihin rahoitusvälineiden jaottelussa ja arvostamisessa. Tavoitteena on selvittää rahoitusvälineiden arvostamiseroista johtuvien realisoitumattomien arvonmuutosten kirjaaminen kansallisessa kirjanpidossa ja verotuksessa ja IFRS-standardeissa sekä realisoitumattomien arvonmuutosten vaikutus verotukseen. Tutkimus on teoreettinen tutkimus, joka on komparatiivista analyysiä kirjanpidon, verotuksen ja IFRS-standardien välillä rahoitusvälineiden luokittelussa ja arvostamisessa. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan deskriptiivinen ja ymmärtämään pyrkivä. Tutkimuksessa käsitellään kirjanpitolakia (1336/1997), Kauppa- ja teollisuusministeriön asetusta rahoitusvälineiden arvostamisesta sekä merkitsemisestä tilinpäätökseen ja konsernitilinpäätökseen (1315/2004), elinkeinoverolakia (360/1968) sekä IAS 32 - ja 39 -standardeja.