CROATIAN AND GERMAN ACCOUNTING – A GUIDING OVERVIEW OF REGULATIONS AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF THE ACCOUNTING DIRECTIVE 2013/34/EU

Abstract

The Accounting Directive 2013/34/EU has impacted all the EU Member States due to their obligation to transpose it into the national legal acts. The paper deals with the Croatian and German regulations against the Accounting Directive. Since the Directive offers several alternatives for which national regulators should decide what to include in the legal framework, there are certain differences among the EU Member states. The goal of the paper is to analyze the case of Croatian and German accounting in the light of regulations and standards. The selected countries are important strategic and trading partners and the number of subsidiaries in Croatia formed by German entities increases. The methodology includes the analysis of accounting legal framework in the observed countries in the light of the Accounting Directive implementation, the role of Companies act and the financial reporting standards in prescribing accounting principles and the interrelation between financial and tax accounting. Although both countries have implemented the Directive, our research results indicate that there is a difference between the accounting systems. German accounting principles are defined through the German Companies Act whereas the Croatian Accounting Act represents the top act in charge of accounting in Croatia supplemented with the CFRS and IFRS. As a consequence, the difference is also found in the interdependence between financial and tax accounting. However, there * Full professor at Faculty of Economics and Business University of Zagreb; imamic@efzg.hr. ** Full professor, Hochschule Osnabrück, Lingen Campus; G.Meeh-Bunse@hs-osnabrueck.de. *** Research Assistant, Hochschule Osnabrück, Lingen Campus; K.Luer@hs-osnabrueck.de. Intereulaweast, Vol. VI (2) 2019 116 are some similarities indicated, as the commercial balance sheet should be adjusted for the purpose of taxation in both countries.