Valuing Heritage Assets in Accounting Free-Samples for Students

Questions: 1.Discuss about the recent Change in Accounting Directives for Heritage Assets. 2.Discuss the argument of Ellwood and Greenwood(2016). Answers: 1.Unique Attributes of Heritage Assets: Heritage assets including monuments, art collections, museum collections, national park, forts, etc has been defined by Treasury department of New South Wales as the assets other than current assets that the Government or any public sector undertaking wants to preserve for indefinite period because of their unique historical, cultural and environmental characteristics. The main unique feature of the heritage assets is that: These assets cannot be replaced and These will be preserved and kept intact for the indefinite period These assets does not possess any market value These assets provide social benefits rather than economic benefits and (Henderson and Peirson G, 2015). The United Kingdom Accounting Standard Board has laid down the definition of the asset as any right or access to the economic benefits, which will be generated in future, being controlled and directed by the entity as a result of any event related to the past period (ASB, 2014). As per the given pictures following will treated as heritage asset: Starry Night This is heritage asset as it is the collection of art and will generate future economic benefits for the future periods through tourist attractions and hence fit for the definition of an asset. The Rosetta Stone This stone has the cultural and historic value because it has been deposited in British Museum in the year of 1802 in the London and hence is the heritage asset will generate future economic benefits for the future periods through tourist attractions and hence fit for the definition of an asset. (Sayce,2010). Sydney Harbor Bridge This Bridge though owned by the private entity but is treated as the heritage asset on the account that it has the environmental value and provide economic benefits. Blue Mountains National Park All the national parks are included in the definition of heritage assets and having the economic benefits through tourist attraction, it shall be treated as heritage asset. 2.Argument of Ellwood and Greenwood (2016) Both Ellwood and Greenwood have argued that with the measurement of the economic value of the heritage assets, their cultural value will gets affected. Economic value is totally different from the cultural value. The two organizations National Portrait Gallery and Tower Hamlets London Borough Council have distinguished then economic value and cultural value. The first organization says that all the collections from the art is for the nation only and also the collection so received can never exceed the cultural value that the art has gained since its inception. It is because the art may have zero value but have high cultural value being the only art painted by that only person. Like that of Mona Lisa in Paris, France. The second organization has said that some paintings have economic value of below Pound 50,000 but some paintings though have no monetary value like that of lying under the river boats of Thames, but have much higher significance in terms of the cultural value and thats the reason the same has been included in the financial statements of the company (Sayce, 2010). But it is very much clear that the economic value creation will not in any way affect the cultural value but if the cultural value is created then its economic value will automatically gets increased. References ASB, (2014), Heritage Assets : Can Accounting Do better available at https://frc.org.uk/Our-Work/Publications/ASB/Heritage-Assets-can-accounting-do-better.pdf accessed on 03-05-2017. Henderson S and Peirson G, (2015), Issues in Financial Accounting, available at https://books.google.co.in/books?id=wzXiBAAAQBAJpg=PA833lpg=PA833dq=unique+attributes+of+heritage+assetssource=blots=_Qf6r6qoABsig=NK41pttEf1btTf_AsEeLTZFVdwAhl=ensa=Xved=0ahUKEwjnjLqbi9PTAhVKuY8KHQ0PAzwQ6AEITjAG#v=onepageq=unique%20attributes%20of%20heritage%20assetsf=false accessed on 03-05-2017 Sayce S, (2010), Valuing Heritage Assets, available at https://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/15845/1/Sayce-S-15845.pdf accessed on 03-05-2017