Public Accounting, between positive law and self-regulation

Abstract

This text intends to present a critical view of the process of adoption of international standards for the Accounting profession in Colombia, identifying the main problems incorporated and the consequences derived from the process, considering questionable aspects such as the role of self-regulation in a Social State of Law, but also some elements on the effects on the quality of information and the quality of professional practice.

The work method used is based on critical analysis of the process, anchored in hermeneutic practices, especially legal, which allowed the identification of perverse effects on the national legal structure and the creation of uncertainty scenarios for the professional practice, which requires urgent rectifications that should be the reason for governmental decisions aimed at the construction of legal security, autonomy of the legal jurisdictions avoiding problems of non-observance of the constitutional organization such as the one that determines that in times of peace only the Congress of the Republic can modify the tax structures, a rule that is threatened today because the bases of determination of taxes and withholdings can be modified by the adoption of rules or frameworks of self-regulation issued by foreign private entities. 

The conclusions obtained refer to the identification of conditions for the construction of anomie in regulation and professional practice, the deinstitutionalization of the social rule of law and the need for social and professional actions to rebuild the threatened institutionality as a factor for the construction of trust and regulatory stability in business and professional practice.