협동조합 출자금과 비분할 적립금의 자기자본-부채 분류: 협동조합 관련법 중심으로

Co-operatives are democratically owned and controlled by users, not investors, and supplyproducts and services to members and communities. They are acknowledged as important organizationsin realizing sustainable development goals like poverty reduction, the creation and provision of qualityjobs. Member shares of co-operatives are hybrid securities with characteristics of equity and liabilities:voting rights and dividends rights; obligation to refund member shares when members withdraw.Member shares have characteristics different from stocks of investor-owned businesses and theirclassification as equity or liabilities are major concern of co-operatives. Moreover, another attributeof co-operatives are indivisible reserves, which are assets commonly owned and controlled by butnot distributed to members. This paper aims to classify member shares and indivisible reserves asequity or liabilities by analyzing acts and model articles of incorporation regarding to co-operativesusing approaches for equity-liabilities distinction suggested by FASB, IASB, and so on. For thepurpose, the study identifies the Framework Act on Cooperatives and the other six acts for co-operativesas well as their model articles of incorporation, use seven approaches for equity-liabilities distinctionincluding basic ownership, loss absorption and timing-amount approaches. In addition to member shares, complicated financial instruments with attributes both ofequity and liabilities have been issued and IASB, FASB, etc. have acknowledged difficulties to classifythem as equity or liabilities. They have tried to make criteria to complement those problems butmaintain dichotomous classification: equity or liabilities. When approaches are invented, the importantpoint is whether they are able to provide proper information to stakeholders including investors. Theclassification of hybrid instruments can be dependent on what information are provided. Most of approaches about the classification and accounting standards have developed on behalf ofinvestor-owned business. Thus, they are likely not to fit with co-operatives, which ownership structureand purpose are different from investor-owned businesses, and not to provide suitable informationabout co-operatives. This paper tries to find those issues and search for appropriate criteria forco-operatives. The results show that member shares in most types of co-operatives can be classified asliabilities and indivisible reserves as equity under the acts and the model articles of incorporation.Although IASB proposed the method that member shares can be classified as equity through IFRICInterpretation 2, the current acts and the model articles do not have clauses about unconditional rightsto refuse redemption of member shares, and then it is highly possible for member shares to be classifiedas liabilities. Also, it is more likely for member shares to be distinguished as liabilities under basicownership and timing-amount approaches which IASB and FASB prefer. On contrary, under the lossabsorption approach that defines equity as the ability to absorb loss, member shares and indivisiblereserves in most types of co-operatives can be classified as equity. The implications of this paperare as follows. It is needed to adopt an approach relevant to the purpose and operation of co-operativesthan approaches developed based on investor-owned businesses, which can offer stakeholders ofco-operatives more suitable information. Also, it is needed to promote indivisible reserves in orderto strengthen the equity capital of co-operatives. This study finds that clauses about member shares,accountability of members for loss, the disposal of residual property among the acts are differentfrom each other, which seems to be in line with each other.