Accounting developments of Spanish Local Governments: An international comparison

This paper analyzes the developments of Spanish local government accounting. To evaluate the Spanish developments in the presentation of annual accounts, we have taken as a benchmark the IPSAS (International Public Sector Accounting Standards) of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the accounting information disclosed by other countries at local level. This comparison allows us to identify strong and weak points and the degree of implementation of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in the Spanish local governments. In this article we also study the different ways of managing public services in Spanish and European local governments and the accounting employed for consolidating the accounts of local governments. The results show a higher degree of coincidence between the services provided by larger European Union (EU) local governments and the need to consolidate their financial report.