Starbucks International Accounting

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Expanding sales to foreign countries can offer a Multinational Company (MNC) higher profit margins, unique products, and technological advantages. One of the major issues that an MNC will face is analyzing foreign financial statements, due to the diversity of accounting guidelines across the world. It’s imperative that companies that decide to go international learn and understand the tax laws and guidelines of other countries, in order to minimize the accounting issues involved in business activities. One of the top coffee producing companies in the world, Starbucks Corp has grown to be a powerful MNC. Their investment in foreign operations and foreign trade requires them to understand international accounting concepts and international financial reporting standards (IFRS). In this report, GAAP concepts used by Starbuck’s will be compared to IFRS.
Understanding the Common Issues of MNC
Starbucks Corp, a US based company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, has more than 19,000 stores in 62 countries. Although most of its business activities are conducted in the US, it management must understand the differences of reporting practices around the world that are used for accounting practices. Some of the common factors that affect financial reporting that can cause companies to fail are: legal system, taxation, inflation, and political and economic ties.
Depending on the legal parameters, countries may be required to adhere to strict laws and regulations which can leave small room for interpretation and improvising. For tax purposes, US companies are allowed to use faster depreciation and straight line depreciation for financial statements; Starbucks chooses to use the straight line depreciation. When paying taxes, adj...

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...ciates its assets on a straight line basis. Both IAS 16 and GAAP, depreciates assets over its expected useful life.
Starbuck’s recognizes Employee benefits according to the GAAP, in which the accounting for post-employment benefits depend upon the type of benefit provided. Like IAS 19, a defined contribution plan is a benefit plan that an employer pays specified contributions (Munter & Santoro, 2013). Starbucks maintains voluntary defined contribution plans, both qualified and non-qualified, covering eligible employees as defined in plans.
Under GAAP, revenue recognition is realized when earned, while IAS 18 recognizes only if it’s probable that benefits will flow to the entity and can be measured. Sales of products by Starbuck’s are recognized when the products are received by the manufacture. GAAP provides specific guidance for revenue recognition.

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