Peering Under the Inflationary Veil: Proceedings of a Conference on Inflation-Induced Distortions in Financial Reporting and Taxation

Stephen J. Kees was Chief Librarian, Niagara College of Applied Arts and Technology, Welland, Ontario.

For most of us, peering under the inflationary veil would be about as exciting as what the butler saw. However, to the accountants trying to produce a true picture of a company’s results and the taxation staffs working from those figures, the problem of accounting for inflation is critical. This conference took a look at the situation in the other two major English language areas, Britain and the United States. One conclusion was that there was a need for a revision of the Canadian accounting rules, although in fact such a revision was then being prepared by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. At these discussions it was appreciated that this problem of inflation accounting was only one part of the wider problem of the allocation of resources. The papers are preceded by a synopsis which gives a good overview of them and of the discussions. No real consensus emerged as to methods to be adopted to cope with this situation. While accountants (and, to a lesser degree, economists) would appreciate this discussion, it is difficult for most of us to understand.