La reporting entity nell'armonizzazione contabile delle amministrazioni pubbliche italiane: criticità e proposte

The reform and harmonization of the accounting systems of Italian public administrations highlight the need to identify individual reporting entities – those entities that will be required by the legislative to publish financial statements compliant with the Italian Accounting Standards (ITAS), currently under development. The article provides a theoretical discussion of the public sector reporting entity – a fundamentally new concept to the Italian accounting doctrine. The study is also meant to provide a timely contribution to the debate on a key of the accrual accounting reform included in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). To this aim, the study follows an interdisciplinary-comparative approach. First, the article analyzes the definitions of reporting entity developed by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board and some major national standard setters. At an international level, the reporting entity is understood as an entity that prepares General Purpose Financial Reports (GPFR) that are useful to users that are dependent on GPFR of the entity for accountability and decision-making purposes. Next, the article examines what relationship, if any, exists between the international accounting definition of reporting entity and the concept of ‘institutional unit’ – the basic economic unit that populates national accounts. The analysis shows only partial overlap between the two notions, that suggests caution in identifying public sector reporting entities on the basis of the list of institutional units included in the ‘General Government Sector’ of national accounts. Furtherly, the study brings into consideration the different notions of ‘autonomy’ from administrative law. In particular, the notion of financial autonomy proves to be a potentially useful concept to distinguish reporting entities among those entities falling within the boundary of the accrual accounting reform. As a result, the article identifies five basic elements to a definition of public sector reporting entity. The proposed definition is meant to be compliant with the international accounting notion of reporting entity as well as suitable to the institutional context of the Italian accounting reform. The proposal may assist policy-makers and the legislature in defining the characteristics of the public sector reporting entities under ITAS.