First, China's current budget accounting problems
China's current budget accounting includes total budget accounting, administrative unit accounting and public institution accounting. Judging from the scope of application of budget accounting, it is equivalent to foreign government accounting. Since the implementation of 1998 new budget accounting system, great changes have taken place in China's budget accounting environment. Focusing on strengthening and standardizing financial management, China has carried out a series of reforms in the financial budget management system, including the preparation of departmental budgets, the implementation of centralized treasury receipt and payment system, and the implementation of government procurement system. The implementation of the reform has brought many new situations to the accounting content of the budget accounting system. The original accounting contents and methods can no longer adapt to the new changes, and it is urgent to further revise and improve the budget accounting system. In addition, from the trend of government accounting reform, because China's budget accounting still adopts cash basis, which is quite different from international practice, some deep-seated problems are exposed in its implementation.
1, the current budget accounting can not truly and completely account for and reflect the new business after the implementation of the centralized treasury payment system and the government procurement system.
The implementation of centralized treasury payment system and government procurement system has greatly changed the flow of financial funds. For example, the financial funds needed by budget units to pay wages, purchase fixed assets, purchase materials and services are no longer allocated to users by the financial department through the competent department, but are directly allocated to employees' wage accounts by the financial department from a single account or a special purchase account or directly allocated to suppliers providing goods or services according to prescribed procedures. The financial funds received by administrative units and institutions are no longer monetary funds, but on the one hand, income increases, on the other hand, expenditure increases (such as wages, etc.). ) or the increase of non-monetary assets (such as inventory, construction in progress, fixed assets, etc.). ), which requires that the accounting contents stipulated in the accounting system of administrative units and institutions be revised accordingly. Similarly, in the accounting of the total financial budget, this change in capital flow should also be accounted for and reflected. Although the Ministry of Finance has made some corresponding changes in the budget accounting system and formulated the pilot accounting method for the pilot reform, this method is only applicable to the central pilot units, not to local finance and its subordinate budget units. At present, all localities are carrying out pilot reforms of fiscal expenditure, such as "centralized accounting" and "centralized payment". As China implements a unified national accounting system, the pilot method does not take into account local practices, which is not conducive to accounting in various regions. In addition, because the cash base has not been broken, the pilot method is not perfect. For example, in the process of purchasing materials and materials, different situations may occur. Some materials and materials have arrived, but invoices and bills have not arrived; Some invoices and bills have arrived, but materials and supplies have not arrived; Some may take the form of one-time payment; Some may adopt installment payment, and so on. In this way, the problem encountered in the accounting of administrative institutions is when to confirm the purchased assets. What is the number of assets purchased? The problem of general budget accounting is when to confirm financial expenditure. What is the amount of expenditure recorded? Under the cash basis, only when the administrative and public institutions actually receive the appropriation documents can they confirm and measure the purchased materials and materials according to the appropriation amount. If the procurement process spans several years, it will not fully reflect economic and commercial activities; Under the cash basis, the total budget accounting can only confirm and measure the financial expenditure according to the appropriation when the funds are actually allocated. If by the end of the year, the procurement has been basically completed, but the money has not been paid off, or part of the down payment must be withheld according to the procurement contract, a balance of financial funds will be formed at the end of the year, which cannot truly reflect the budget implementation.
2. The current budget accounting cannot provide relevant accounting information for the preparation of departmental budgets.
On the surface, the preparation of departmental budget has little to do with budget accounting, but in essence, budget accounting information is an important basis and the basis for the preparation of departmental budget. China's budget preparation is replacing the "base method" with the "zero base method". Under the traditional "base method", the expenditure index of each department is simply determined according to the expenditure base of the base year plus a growth ratio, and there is no need for too much accounting information when making decisions. In this case, the disadvantages of the traditional accounting foundation are not revealed. However, under the "zero-based method", everything starts from "zero", and the amount of funds used is mainly determined by objective factors such as the responsibilities of various departments, the economic resources occupied, and the staffing. Therefore, in addition to the relevant supporting systems such as approved establishment and standard quota, it is very important to find out the "property" of each department and fully understand the resource occupation and use of each department. China's administrative institutions have formed and owned a large number of fixed assets such as houses and buildings in the long-term use of budget funds and official activities, and many institutions such as scientific research, universities, hospitals and other units also have a considerable amount of equity investment. Because China's budget accounting mainly focuses on the income and expenditure accounting of financial funds, it pays insufficient attention to the long-term assets occupied by various units, and the construction and use of fixed assets are out of touch in management. The construction unit shall complete the basic construction task first, and then hand over the assets to the users after the project is completed. The construction of fixed assets is not registered in the account books of administrative and public institutions, but can only be registered after the completion acceptance handover procedures. In actual work, the fixed assets formed by administrative and public institutions due to infrastructure construction are not registered in time or even accounted for; Even the fixed assets that have been accounted for are not depreciated according to the current system, which cannot reflect the use of fixed assets and inflated the value of assets. There are some problems in the long-term asset accounting of administrative institutions, such as false accounts and inflated assets, which can not truly and completely reflect the economic resources occupied by each unit and their use, and it is difficult to provide a clear "family background" for the preparation of departmental budgets.
3. The current budget accounting can't reveal the real information of government debt comprehensively and completely.
In recent years, China has implemented a proactive fiscal policy and issued a large number of government bonds. China has also borrowed a considerable amount of foreign debts from international financial organizations such as the World Bank and foreign governments. These debts are the real liabilities of the government and should be reflected in the financial accounting report. However, the current budget accounting can not provide complete information in this regard. Because the current budget accounting is based on cash basis, financial expenditure only reflects the actual amount of principal and interest paid in the current period, and interest expenditure cannot be accrued. The government's liabilities only reflect the amount of principal paid in the current period, but not the amount of interest that should be borne in the current period and paid in future years. In some western regions of China, the problem of local governments' arrears of wages has not been fundamentally solved, and these arrears of wages have not been reflected in the budget accounting statements. In addition, some local governments provide guarantees for enterprises from time to time, and the contingent liabilities formed by these contingencies have not been fully disclosed. Under the cash basis, these debts of the government are "hidden", which cannot truly reflect the financial situation of the government, exaggerates the financial resources that the government can control, and causes a false balance phenomenon, which is not conducive to the government's effective monitoring of financial risks and evaluation of financial situation, and brings hidden dangers to the sustained and healthy operation of the financial economy.
4. Current budget accounting can't provide complete and transparent government accounting information.
Since 1998, the National People's Congress has intensified its financial supervision, and the National Audit Office has continuously published the financial audit reports of 1999-2004. Government budget and related information have aroused widespread concern in the whole society, and the public has put forward new requirements for the integrity and transparency of government accounting information. Although China's fiscal general budget accounting, administrative unit accounting and public institution accounting each have a set of accounting statements and provide summary accounting statements, each set of accounting statements is self-contained and compiled separately, so it is impossible to generate the consolidated balance sheet of the whole government through summary, and there is no set of consolidated accounting statements that can fully reflect the overall picture of government assets, liabilities and net assets at all levels. Although the current budget accounting provides the overall budget report of the government (including the budget revenue and expenditure report and the budget implementation report for the next fiscal year), these reports are incomplete because many types of financial transactions (such as government funds and extrabudgetary transactions) are not included. In addition, for a long time, we only emphasized that budget accounting serves for budget management, and budget accounting is a tool of budget management, resulting in that budget accounting only focuses on the accounting of income, expenditure and balance of budget funds, and the financial budget and final accounts report submitted to the National People's Congress every year is mainly aimed at fiscal revenue and expenditure and budget implementation. There is a lack of information disclosure on huge fixed assets and their uses, government borrowing debts and repayment of principal and interest, contingent liabilities, tax expenditures, and the use effect of budget funds. Not only is it difficult for the legislature, audit institutions and the public to supervise, but the financial department itself also lacks important information needed for macro-decision.
5. The current budget accounting can't meet the requirements of the government's investment and financing system reform.
In recent years, the marketization process of China's financial investment and financing system has been continuously promoted, and the main bodies of government investment and financing have been diversified. With the involvement of the private sector in the public sector, higher requirements are put forward for the transparency and accuracy of accounting information of government departments. On the one hand, it requires comparability with government accounting information, on the other hand, it requires government departments to provide sufficient information to price, calculate and compare costs.
6. The current budget accounting can't meet the requirements of WTO and international competition.
The key to China's entry into WTO is the government's entry into WTO. Economic globalization makes the government become an enterprise or an enterprise. Since it is an enterprise, of course, we must act according to the rules of the enterprise, so as to survive and develop. The basis of enterprise accounting is accrual basis, so the current budget accounting based on cash basis can not meet the requirements of government management and can not achieve performance-oriented management.
Second, the reform of China's current budget accounting countermeasures
With the improvement of the socialist market economy system, the construction of public finance framework and the deepening of the reform of departmental budget, treasury centralized payment system and government procurement system, the disadvantages and shortcomings of the current budget accounting are becoming more and more obvious. We must reform the current budget accounting, proceed from the reality of China and learn from the successful experience of budget accounting practice in developed countries to develop more comprehensive budget accounting.
1, reconstructing the budget accounting system
The current budget accounting system (in a narrow sense) includes: general budget accounting, administrative unit accounting and public institution accounting. However, with the reform of budget management system, China's budget accounting system will develop to "government and non-profit organization accounting". China can learn from the classification methods of enterprise accounting and non-enterprise accounting in developed countries, that is, classify according to the purpose of unit activities (rather than organizational categories). Accounting for non-profit organizations can be further divided into government accounting and non-profit organization accounting according to different accounting priorities. China's current budget accounting should be comprehensively reformed from the overall framework, and the government accounting, non-profit organization accounting system and financial accounting reporting system should be studied and formulated. The budget accounting system should be composed of government accounting and public institution accounting in the near future, and it should be the government accounting system in the long term, in which government accounting includes total budget accounting and administrative unit accounting, and total budget accounting and administrative unit accounting are the relationship between total score and points; The accounting of public institutions should be included in the accounting of non-profit organizations in the near future, and it should be close to the accounting of enterprises in the long term. Taking the government as the main body of accounting and financial reporting, the concepts of "creditor's rights system" and "entrusted responsibility" are introduced. China's government financial report should provide financial and non-financial information that fully reflects government performance and financial fiduciary responsibility, and disclose information such as budget, state-owned assets, government procurement funds and social security funds.
2. Gradually turn to accrual accounting.
Accrual basis is a necessary means for users to evaluate the performance of government financial fiduciary responsibility, and it is also the reform direction of government accounting under the new public management system. Different government accounting models in developed countries have adopted this accounting basis to varying degrees. According to the principle of accrual basis, revenue is recognized only when the government provides services. After receiving services, the government should recognize the corresponding obligations as current expenses and include them as liabilities in the balance sheet, so that the government's financial report can fully reflect the government's financial situation and operating results. Similarly, accrual basis requires that all economic resources be recognized on the balance sheet. For example, in New Zealand, highways and other infrastructure are recognized as assets and their depreciation expenses are recognized, which will make the government pay more attention to the management and maintenance of related assets, better understand the future short-term debts, better manage infrastructure and redistribute the budget more effectively. The accounting basis of China's budget accounting should be a gradual change, from public institution accounting to government accounting, from reporting system to budget system, from individual to whole, from local to central. In the early stage of China's government accounting reform, we can consider learning from the modified cash basis system of Germany and France, that is, first confirm accounts receivable and accounts payable, achieve balance of payments in each period, and clarify the performance of government fiduciary responsibilities in the current period.
3. Improve and perfect the government accounting information system.
The basic goal of any accounting system is to provide information to meet the needs of users. Financial report is a basic tool to meet the information needs of all kinds of users, because all kinds of users need to obtain the relevant information of the reporting subject through financial report. The design of government accounting reporting system must meet the needs of different users. However, the information provided by the current budget accounting reporting system is not comprehensive, complete and opaque, which can not meet the needs of report users, especially external users, and should be improved. On the basis of improving the current accounting statement structure and items, the cash flow statement and the government's overall consolidated accounting statement are added. A complete government accounting information system includes: providing reliable government expenditure and cost information in time to help government departments make decisions and control expenditures; Conduct internal audit and independent external audit in time, and prepare audit reports; Integrating accounting system with planning, budgeting, cash and debt management and auditing system; Report information about non-cash resources (assets, liabilities, human capital); Report information about government output or the consequences of government policies, and urge the government to improve work efficiency and strengthen cost management; Prepare financial reports of government departments and the whole government.