Financial accounting is the language of the business world and generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) comprise its terminology. The dictionary-like use of GAAP in business discourse conveys a conception of accounting standards as definitional rules, i.e., as rules that merely provide consensual definitions for financial discourse without affecting the content of the discourse. As such, GAAP is believed to be neutral and bias-free and consequently, promulgation of accounting standards and the content of the GAAP have not attracted much legal attention.This article challenges the prevailing legal indifference towards the GAAP and those promulgating it. By revealing GAAP's effects on corporate behavior and on the function of many social, political and financial systems that utilize accounting parameters, this article discusses the substantive power private parties gain through the promulgation of accounting standards and how these standards imply a biased agenda that prefers the investor perspective over other contrary perspectives, thereby establishing a skewed financial perception of reality, such that subordinates the social order entirely to investors’ objectives. While reviewing how the GAAP is perceived by the court, this article further argues that the existing legal perception of accounting standards as neutral definitional rules has yielded court rulings that relieved accounting standards promulgators from professional duties and has prevented judicial review of the standards themselves, leaving the GAAP and its promulgators practically immune to legal scrutiny.Attention is then drawn to a possible solution presented by a recent SEC proposal to allow domestic issuers to disclose supplemental IFRS-based financial results in addition to those required by the GAAP. It is suggested that such additional financial disclosure can curtail GAAP’s hegemony, curb its promulgators and partially ease some of the existing biases of financial accounting.

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公认会计原则的差距

财务会计是商业世界的语言，公认的会计原则（GAAP）构成其术语。GAAP在业务语篇中的字典式用法传达了会计标准的概念，即定义性规则，即仅为财务语篇提供共识定义而不影响语篇内容的规则。因此，公认会计原则被认为是中立且无偏见的，因此，会计准则的颁布和公认会计原则的内容并未引起太多法律关注。本文对现行的对公认会计原则及其颁布者的冷漠态度提出了挑战。通过揭示GAAP对公司行为以及利用会计参数的许多社会，政治和金融系统的功能的影响，本文讨论了私人团体通过颁布会计准则而获得的实质性权力，以及这些准则如何暗示偏向议程的议程，该议程偏向于从投资者的角度出发而非其他相反的角度，从而建立了对现实的偏斜财务认知，从而使社会秩序完全服从投资者的目标。在回顾法院对公认会计原则的看法时，本文进一步指出，现行对会计准则作为中性定义规则的法律理解，产生了法院裁定，使会计准则发布者免于承担专业职责，并阻止了对准则本身的司法审查，从而GAAP及其发布者实际上不受法律审查。然后，请注意美国证券交易委员会最近的一项提议提出的一种可能的解决方案，以允许国内发行人披露除国际公认会计原则要求之外的，基于国际财务报告准则的补充财务结果。有人建议，这种额外的财务披露可以减少GAAP的霸权，遏制GAAP的颁布者，并部分缓解一些现有的财务会计偏见。