Die rekeningkundige verantwoording van skripdividendskemas in Suid-Afrika

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Scrip dividends have become increasingly popular in South Africa SInce theintroduction of secondary tax on companies (STC) in the 1993 budget. There is morethan one approach to the treatment of scrip dividend schemes for accounting purposes,i.e. the reinvestment approach and the capitalisation issue approach. Unfortunatelyguidance in the form of a statement or guideline from the South African Institute ofChartered Accountants has not been forthcoming.Companies in the United States of America account for stock dividends (capitalisationissues) in a variety of ways and several studies have analysed the effect of theseaccounting treatments on retained earnings and the retained earnings hypothesis.Several empirical studies in the United States of America and the United Kingdomhave documented marked differences in the ability of companies in these countries tomake distributions to shareholders. For this reason the accounting treatment of stockdividends and scrip dividends in these countries was examined and compared to themethods used in South Africa.Earnings per share is often used by financial analysts to analyse and comparecompanies. The methods used in South Africa to account for scrip dividends result indifferent calculations of earnings per share and therefore the effect of the differentmethods was examined.This study concludes that the reinvestment approach is theoretically the mostacceptable accounting treatment of scrip dividend schemes In South Africa. Arepresentative sample of companies which declared scrip dividends in the period 1993to 1999 was selected to determine how these schemes are implemented in the SouthAfrican economy. These companies' financial statements were analysed to determineif the scrip dividend schemes were treated in terms of the accounting methodproposed in this study and if the necessary information was disclosed in the financialstatements. This study finds that different accounting approaches are used in SouthAfrica, that earnings per share and secondary tax on companies are not calculatedconsistently for accounting purposes and that the information disclosed to the users ofthe financial statements differs from company to company. It is recommended thatthe South African Institute of Chartered Accountants issue accounting guidelines tothe drafters of financial statements regarding scrip dividend schemes.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University