Advanced Accounting Assessment 1

Advanced Accounting Assessment 1

The listed company that I have chosen from my home country is Thai Airways. Thai Airways is Thailand’s largest airline in the country and is one of the largest and most successful companies in Thailand. According to the Annual report of 2014, the company had revenue of 203.89 Billion Thai Baht (about 7.8 Billion Australian Dollars), demonstrating the great strength of the organisation. Being such a large organisation, the Thai Airways company must be transparent and honest because the auditing process is incredibly thorough.

The other company which I chose to analyse is Qantas Airlines. I believe that comparing two similar companies from 2 different countries can be an effective way to determine the difference between government standards. Qantas is Australia’s largest airline and is considered to be the flag holder airline for Australia. Qantas has an annual revenue of $15.9 Billion Australian Dollars making it bigger than Thai Airways. Qantas is also monitored and audited intensely and therefore, must ensure that the annual report is transparent and accurate for all stakeholders.

When measuring and reviewing the compliance of these organisations to the standard requirements, Thai Airways and Qantas both disclosed information about the executives remuneration and employee benefits. Thai Airways information was very clear and all benefits and remunerations were disclosed clearly as seen in text below.

Figure – Page 61 Remuneration for Executives Thai Airways

Additionally, there is a clear and precise amount of the initial recognition for remuneration in the table below, showing how the information is disclosed freely to the stakeholders. This is for compliance of accounting standards and accentuates the transparency of the company.

Figure – Table of Thai Airways Executives’ Compensation Figures

ICAO or International Civil Aviation Organisation is the key auditor of Thai Airways and therefore, it is important that Thai Airways is able to provide accurate and honest information which comply with the accounting standards. The ICAO has implemented the USOAP which stands for the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme, and this is the auditing scheme for ensuring that all organisations are complying with the standards requirements.

Qantas provides information about the employee benefits which is compliant to the standards requirements of the AASB 2 and AASB 119. Qantas also discloses information about the company executive’s compensation, however the information is less detailed than Thai Airways and the information is also more generalised, making the information less useful. When comparing the two company’s annual reports, Thai Airways is much more transparent and the information quality and value is much better than in Qantas’s annual report.

The below figure is a screenshot of the employee benefits. This information is less obvious than in the Thai Airways annual report. Qantas remuneration details are also less specific compared to the Thai Airways Remuneration policy which details how much each executive gets per month plus allowances and meeting remuneration. Qantas does not disclose this information effectively and therefore requires amending within this area of the Annual Report.

Figure – Page 117 Employee Benefits

According to the AASB 119 standards, the company must disclose wages, salaries, annual leave, sick leave, profit-sharing and non-monetary benefits. AASB 119 states that “Although this Standard does not require specific disclosures about short-term employee benefits, other Australian Accounting Standards may require disclosures. For example, AASB 124 requires disclosures about employee benefits for key management personnel. AASB 101 Presentation of Financial Statements requires disclosure of employee benefits expense”. This means that it is a requirement from the Australia Accounting standards that these details of employee benefits and remuneration are disclosed clearly. Qantas does disclose this information and therefore is considered compliant; however there is poor effort of disclosing accurate and reliable information.

Culture has a significant impact on a countries standards of information disclosure, as certain information is deemed private confidential in certain countries whilst other countries may require this information to be disclosed to stakeholders. Because of this, it is harder to compare the compliance of both companies when there are different standards for each country. Australia has definitely been able to comply with the standards requires set by the AASB especially within AASB 2 and AASB 119. When it comes to information disclosure, privacy and discretion is incredibly important, however these cultural differences could also be used for hiding information and discrepancies. Because of this, there is a very strict limit to what information can be private and what information is required for disclosure, .

Australia’s national standards of reporting information is much stricter than Thailand and therefore, Qantas must provide any information that is required from their national accounting standards committee without question. Thailand’s standards are more flexible, however most of the vital information is still provided in great detail. Thai Airways complies with the majority of AASB standards; however less vital information may not be necessarily required for disclosure.

Additionally, English is not the main language of Thailand and therefore, the Annual report’s formality is much lower. As stakeholders may need to understand the annual report, it is important that the words are made simpler for all stakeholders and this improves the effectiveness of the annual report. Australia’s first language is English and most stakeholders will understand the English language and therefore Qantas’ Annual report has a much higher formality which is good for locals but for people that speak English as a secondary language, it may be harder to understand. Making Annual reports in different languages is also twice the effort and therefore, it is important that only the vital and necessary information is disclosed in the Annual report.

According to , religion plays a significant part of the accounting standards because what is considered ethical is most commonly what is religiously acceptable. Therefore, the religion impacts the accounting standards because it is important that dishonesty and fraudulence is identified and punished. Due to the fact that Buddhism is…