Deferred Income: Development of Accounting and Reporting Rules

Abstract

One of the most specific and controversial objects of accounting are deferred income. The purpose of this article is to, based on the analysis of regulatory legal acts and the works of various authors, identify the features and problems of recognizing deferred income, justify the use of a unified approach to their accounting and reporting in commercial organizations and public sector organizations. As a result of the study, multidirectional trends in accounting for deferred income in the private sector and the public administration sector were revealed. A reduction in the grounds for recognizing deferred income in commercial organizations and expanding the list of cases of their occurrence in the public sector has been established. The article reveals debatable issues of reflecting deferred income, including when recognizing subsidies for the fulfillment of the founder's task and income from operating leases. It is proposed to report subsidies as a special obligation to complete the assignment with disclosure in a separate line item in the Liabilities section of the balance sheet. This will improve the quality characteristics of reporting information for users. The author's proposal to develop a unified approach to accounting for operating lease income as part of the current period income in the sectors of the economy under consideration is also substantiated.