Public Sector Accounting in the European Union Member States - Assessment of Practices and Their Compatibility with IPSAS

The purpose of this work is to analyze diverse approaches to public sector accounting, its development throughout the last decade, as well as praxis in the European Union member states. The theoretical part describes the rationales for the need to harmonize public sector accounting in the European Union and its development in the last decades. The empirical part comprises a comparative analysis of the public sector accounting systems, with a focus on: the complexity of legal regulations, local financial reporting systems and their compatibility with IPSAS, informational structures of financial reporting, and practical problems concerning implementation of IPSAS. Finally, the last part comprises case studies regarding the current state of and planned changes to the public sector accounting in Austria and Poland.