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Wrong target
The guilty are I suspect the institutions holding the shares etc on our behalf, insisting that quoted companies return x to shareholders etc, and their acolytes the analysts, moulding company behaviour to their whims.
One has to ask is such short term behaviour as described as prevalent in private companies?
If it is not one asks what is the difference, they both have accountants, so that is not the distinguishing factor?
Imho the distinguishing factor is the clamour from shareholders and wunderkid city analysts .
Imho accountants in accountancy roles are often merely weak facilitators , so needy that they produce what is asked from them by others, they are not the prime movers.
I agree with DJKL re short-termism in private companies. When we are advising on strategies for tax efficiency, that will typically take into account everything when entry into, to exit out of the company (whether that is likely to be in 2, 10 or 50 years).
Whilst, of course, such advice has to carry the caveat that it's based on current legislation, clients rarely want to maximise the short term gains at a longer term, potentially more significant cost.
I'm not sure what this story is about, but if the general public did not vote in the useless governments who fail to intervene as appropriate in our capitalist system we would not have these so-called problems in the 1st place, so arguably it's the fault of the general public. Also, in Japan engineers are revered and highly paid and bankers/accountants etc. are looked down on and not highly paid, whereas here it's the opposite. Why do you think that is? It's no more & no less a cultural thing, so again the general public can be blamed.
The same can be said about the glut of pointless and overrated academics and economists of course who tend to write mostly garbage - as shown above.
I agree with your correspondents the problem isn't with accountants it's with the investors and the Boards of Companies all looking for a quick buck.
When I started as an accountant many years ago perceived wisdom was to invest to build future wealth. Then Big business and greed got involved and the invested businesses became targets for the asset strippers encouraged by the Governments (both sorts) of the time on the basis that big is good which it often isn't. Then the foreigners got into the act and now many UK companies are just UK bases for foreign Companies. What sort of mentality allows strategic things like water and power to fall into overseas hands? Nobody says anything about it unless it is Germany and Russia but Russia isn't the only country inimical to the UK - how about the EU for starters?
DJKL has it right - wrong target.
I, not sure it is completely right to blandly say "Wrong Target" with blanket effect.
An ENORMOUS amount of working time, especially in SMEs, goes into into 'accounting' which happens for two reasons only . . .
1. Accountability to shareholders. Companies exist to manage the resources contributed by the shareholders in such a way as they increase in worth. That worth is distrubuted back either as dividends or increase in shareprice.
2. Accountability for taxation. Arguably, for the good of the citizens, HMG requires a share of that increase in wealth. It confiscates this in two ways - as transactional taxes during the processes of increasing wealth such as VAT, PAYE, StampDuty, excise duty etc. -or confiscatory taxes upon the wealth that is created such as dividendtaxation, inheritance tax etc.
Who thought up these taxes? My bet is that it was Accountants.
Who is responsible for assessing what is to be taxed? - Accountants.
Who do parties turn to for advisement in optimal use of value when addressing these issues? - Accountants.
So whilst I am in agreement that the tenor of the discussion is somewhat accusatory, I also think we have to be careful not to set the profession up as victims of the bad old world out there.
IMHO the truth is that all parties are equally culpable.
Governments legislate, bureaucrats administer, owners instruct and collect, accountants report, advise and sometimes manage. It is only in the management function that accountants are in a position to steer the outcome, When giving advice they influence but they do not decide. We may have a high number of accountants in this country but the claim is that we still have a shortage. So I think it is unfair to blame them for the investment ills of the country.
Many of the accountants I trained and studied with have left accountancy as such and now have full time managerial rolls. Accountancy is recognised as a good training ground for managers in a country that suffers from woefully short management training. I think the spotlight belongs more on the institutions that have short term investment horizons or rent seeking behaviour as their ethos. I don't think it is a coincidence that the fall away of industry and business in this country has happened as the power of the city has risen.