تغییر در پایه های سیستم حسابداری ترکیه و چشم انداز آینده

Accounting is a social construct and shaped by the society in which it operates. Needs of society are the most important influencing factors in the development of accounting in a country. Though in today's open system societies, the change in the accounting is inevitable, it should not be forgotten that accounting is not only a practice but also a discipline which has got theoretical and historical backgrounds. In this regard, this paper notes the changes in Turkish accounting system from the theoretical and historical perspectives.

Turkey is a transition economy and has got emerging capital markets. Particularly 1980s were the breakthrough years for the country. New existing economical policies led the Turkey's economic profile from the rule-bound and mixed economy to open and liberal economy. After this first step, through liberalization, Turkey confronts new challenges like globalization and prospective membership of European Union (EU) in 2000s. However, in today's world globalization can be revealed as common plot for every country but the prospective EU membership can be revealed as peculiar plot for Turkey. This two exogenous factors cause changes in the policy-making area in the many fields related to economy. In this regard accounting is as a social construct, open to influences not only with the changes in its rules but also changes in its structure of rule formulation arena (Walton et al., 1998). Even new institutionalized standard-setting process began to operate for the reforming the current accounting regulations in the country. Although, this changes or reforms and the existence of new reformer institutions increase the global attraction on the capital markets of the country, obvious that to copy the international regulations or other countries’ laws or regulations blindly, can not be absolute solution at all times. Thus, the compliance of the new regulation should be compared and tested with current regulation before to be carried out. The main purpose of this study is, in turn, to be reminder that accounting is a social phenomenon which has got a historical and theoretical background. In this context, we will try to investigate the change in roots of the contemporary Turkish accounting system which begins in the 1923 the date is that establishment of Republic of Turkey. The first chapter appreciates major conceptual issues of accounting and accounting environment related to theme. The historical development of Turkish accounting system takes place briefly in second chapter. In the third chapter, Turkish accounting regime is investigated in the light of the international accounting studies and tracks the changes in the roots of Turkish accounting system within historical perspective. Finally the future perspectives of Turkish accounting system are presented in the conclusion.

When we gathered some important points in the content of this paper, it is revealed that the accounting is result of a need and can vary within time and place and accounting is open to influence of many factors. For Turkish accounting system in turn accounting was formed tax need of the state and regulated under the effect of tax laws with by the historical ties of some western countries. This situation was very appropriate from the aspects of political and economic perspectives, legal system and sources of finance until 1980s. But after the this date both the rapid change in the world economy and in Turkey's economy the change has been inevitable for Turkish accounting regime same like in many socio-political fields. This change in the Turkish accounting regime has happened from Continental European model to Anglo-Saxon accounting model. When the Republic of Turkey was established in the early of 1920s new accounting system in the country was build up on the Continental European basics. Today in 2000s this structure is faced a shift through its roots. When it is compared with model country Germany it will be seen that degree of the change of Turkish accounting system is not lower than the change in Germany. In the both countries application of IFRS are compulsory for the listed companies and in the both countries have got legal standard setter institutions which their members from accounting academics, practitioners and users. Even while German body's extent is limited with developing recommendations for group accounts, advising to Ministry of Justice about accounting legislation projects and representing Germany in international standardization committees, whereas, TASB's mission broader than this (Volmer et al., 2007). The main mission of TASB is to determine and publish national accounting standards which will provide adoption and development of national accounting principles and will be applied for public interest for the financial statements have to be, adequate of need, true, reliable, balanced, comparable, understandable in the presentation of audited financial statements. Doubtless, those common influential factors for both countries are globalization in the capital markets and EU. Nonetheless, the extending authority of the TASB in the draft of Turkish Commercial Code and the desire of TASB to be applied IFRS by the small- and medium-sized companies implies that magnitude of change in the Turkish accounting systems in the future. Several times as it is noted in this paper, the change in the accounting has been inevitable but it should not be forgotten that new regulations has to be inquired and compared with similar cases in the countries which has got similar accounting system. In this context before full application of IFRS in the all business enterprises it has to be increased the number of accounting text books (including IFRS applications) and the skill of certified public accounts has to be raised in the compliance related to new regulations. Also, before stipulates to be applied IFRS by the small- and medium-sized business enterprises, it can be waited the placing of jurisdiction thereby listed companies’ experiences. Consequently we finish our paper to take a humorous look at the behaviors of the people towards rules in the different countries and we are asking, what is the situation in Turkey? International understanding the rules is very difficult because the rules have different meanings: in Germany everything is forbidden unless it is explicitly allowed by the law, whereas in England everything is allowed except what is explicitly forbidden in the law. In China, on the other hand, everything is forbidden, even thought it is allowed by the law, whereas in Italy everything is allowed especially if it is forbidden (Walton et al., 1998).