Inflation accounting

As a result of the lack of appreciating the destructive nature of their implementation of the very destructive stable measuring unit assumption, 1970-style CPP inflation accounting was also not an accounting system implemented by accountants to correct or eliminate the destruction of the real value of constant items by the use of the stable measuring unit assumption, but, a failed attempt to simply make financial reports more understandable and more comparable with previous year statements during periods of high inflation by inflation-adjusting all non-monetary items equally in terms of the CPI.

Accountants simply do not appreciate that they unknowingly destroy real value on a massive scale in all constant real value non-monetary items never or not fully updated when they choose to implement the very destructive stable measuring unit assumption for an unlimited period of time during indefinite inflation. They also do not appreciate that they make that choice. Neither do they appreciate that they will stop that destruction by freely choosing to measure financial capital maintenance in units of constant purchasing power, as approved in the IASB Framework, Par. 104 (a) in 1989.

Geoffrey Whittington in his definitive work on inflation accounting in the beginning of the 1980´s, Inflation Accounting - An Introduction to the Debate, published in 1983, clearly indicated that with 1970-style CPP inflation accounting all non-monetary accounts (with no distinction being made between variable and constant real value non-monetary item accounts) were updated by means of the CPI.

He stated that Constant Purchasing Power inflation accounting (CPP) was a method of inflation-adjusting all non-monetary accounts consistently by means of the Consumer Price Index which reflected changes in money’s purchasing power. 1970-style CPP inflation accounting tried to deal with the problem of inflation in the popularly understood sense, as a decrease in the real value of money. According to Whittington, CPP inflation accounting tried to solve this problem by inflation-adjusting all non-monetary items at the reporting date by means of the CPI.

Kindest regards,

Nicolaas Smith