종교법인 회계제도의 개선방안에 관한 연구

The objective of the present study is to review the general situation and theories of religious corporations' accounting, to examine the definition of religious corporations as well as general features of their accounting, to unveil the issues related to the accounting system of religious corporations in Korea and to suggest the improvement measures for it. The findings of this study could be summed up as follows:First, religious corporations are requested to develop an accounting system that may satisfy the demands of users for information of their organizations. It may be then possible to prepare for basic principles and ways of public announcement that can be applied to every religious corporation. To this end, it requires to conduct systematic depth studies on religious corporations. Second, the double-entry bookkeeping system should be adopted for accounting of religious corporations in consideration of their characteristics since the automatic verification that is based on the duplicity of transactions and principle of equilibrium can reduce deficiencies likely to occur in protection and management of assets. Third, it is deemed necessary to expand the scope of corporations that should undergo external audit to include religious organizations in an effort to heighten the reliability of religious organizations' accounting information and to make public announcement of accounting a must for every religious corporation. The compulsory public announcement of religious corporations' accounting would serve as a good momentum for further progress of their accounting. The present paper seems to have its significance in finding ways to develop religious corporations by seeking for measures to introduce an accounting system that fully considers the characteristics of religious corporations, to train professional manpower who can engage in development and efficiency of accounting system and to reeducate the existing accounting personnel for them.