비상장 중소기업 회계기준 제정방향에 관한 연구

With the recent pronouncement by Korea Accounting Institute and Financial Supervisory Service of the roadmap to adopt the full IFRS from 2011 for all listed companies and financial institutions on a mandatory basis, the policy choice targeting nonlisted small and medium sized entities (SME hereafter) also emerged as another urgent issue among accounting standards setting regimes of Korea. There appears several important questions to be addressed before the issue of establishing accounting standards for SMEs materializes. Efforts must be exercised so that diverse views and voices could be heard from potential interest groups to minimize social costs and conflicts. Under the premise that the necessity for a new system of standards for nonlisted SMEs becomes a shared view among great majority of the economic community, the type of accounting system applicable to a more specific target group will have to be determined. We propose a three-tier approach whereby accounting standards setting organization benchmarks the exposure draft of IFRS for SMEs recently issued by IASB to develop accounting standards applicable to larger sized nonlisted companies subject to external audit law, and refers to a more simplified version of SME standards such as SMEGA level 3 issued by ISAR, UK standards for SMEs. We can also consider an indigenous model reflecting Koreas’ unique SME characteristics when deemed necessary.