In the United Kingdom, the
accounting profession has been
grappling with accounting for the
effects of changing prices since
the late 1960s. Over a decade
later, the Institute of Chartered
Accountants in England and
Wales published Statement of
Standard Accounting Practice no.
16, Current Cost Accounting,
seven months after the Financial
Accounting Standards Board had
issued its statement on inflation
accounting (Statement no. 33,
Financial Reporting and Changing
Prices).
In this article, J. Timothy Sale,
CPA, Ph.D., and Robert W.
Scapens, FCA, Ph.D., discuss the
evolution of the standard-setting
process in the U.K. related to
accounting for changing prices,
the similarities and differences
between SSAP 16 and FASB
Statement no. 33 and the
implications for the U.S.
accounting profession of the U.K.
experience. Sale is associate
professor of accounting at the
University of Cincinnati in Ohio,
and Scapens is senior lecturer of
accounting at the University of
Manchester in England.