A Comparative Study of Accounting in Japan and Indonesia

本研究的目的是比较日本与印尼的会计/税务法律的架构与实务。近年来，外国对印尼的投资急剧增加。一些印尼公司正在追求国际化，如Indosat公司已在纽约证券交易所上市，另一家公司即将在东京证券交易所上市。印度尼西亚的会计标准现在已达到国际水平。这与日本的会计标准形成了有趣的对比，日本的会计标准与国际会计标准仍有很大的不同。如上所述，印度尼西亚的会计面向国际化/自由化，其会计标准已纳入国际会计标准。然而，在实践中，许多公司无法遵守书面会计标准。考虑到印尼的文化背景，我们或许可以表明，印尼公司没有强烈的动机严格遵守这些规定。如果印尼真的打算成为国际化，看来，有必要尝试改变传统的会计价值观，使会计实践与会计准则相协调，这不是一件容易的事，因此，有必要继续各种提高会计教育和注册会计师的素质，改变跨国公司的经营方向，这也是在印尼经营的日本公司面临的问题。它们应遵守印度尼西亚的会计准则和税务条例，以便长期得到尊重。

The Puorpose of this research was to compare Japan and Indonesia in terms of legal framework of accounting/disclosue and accounting/tax practice.Indonesia is now taking the policy of "opening the door" by facilitating de-regulation. Foreign investment into Indonesia is drastically increasing during these few years. Some Indonesian companies are pursuing internationalization.For example, Indosat is now listed to the New York Stock Exchange and another company is going to be listed to Tokyo Stock Exchange soon.3) Tax regulations, accounting standards and company law were reformed in 1994 and 1995. Indonesian accounting standards are now at an international level.This shows an interesting contrast to Japanese accounting standards, which is still quite different from the International Accounting Standards (IAS).As indicated above, Indonesian accounting is oriented towards internationalization/liberalization, and its accounting standards have incorporated IAS.In practice however, great number of companies cannot comply with written accounting standards. Taking into account Indonesian cultural background, we may be able to indicate that Indonesian companies do not have strong motivation to rigorously follow these regulations.If Indonesia truly intends to become international, it seems to be necessary that it try to change the traditional accounting values in order to reconcile accounting practice with its accounting standards.This is not an easy task to cope with.It is thus imperative to continue various efforts to improve accounting education and the quality of certified public accountants, and to change the orientation of the multinational corporations.This also poses a problem to Japanese comanies operating in Indonesia. They are expected to comply with accounting standards and tax regulations of Indonesia so that they are respected in the long run.