WHY GOVERNMENTAL ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL
REPORTING IS—AND SHOULD BE—DIFFERENT
Governments are fundamentally different from for-profit business enterprises in several
important ways. They have different purposes, processes of generating revenues, stakeholders,
budgetary obligations, and propensity for longevity. These differences require separate
accounting and financial reporting standards in order to provide information to meet the needs of
stakeholders to assess government accountability and to make political, social, and economic
decisions. Although state and local governments in the United States have had separate standards