Evidenciação contábil da remuneração de funcionários por opções de ações.

Abstract

After the accounting fraud scandals in the United States, broadcast in 2002, the discussions regarding the accounting disclosure of the granting of share options to employees, as a variable compensation, caused an impact on several social classes, because the regulation in force in that conjuncture, waived the accounting recording of share option packages for employees, requiring only accounting disclosure in footnotes, which was not allowed in other variable compensation packages. Such alleged deviation in the accounting standard was the target of discussions, since one could not allow economically identical transactions to have a different accounting treatment. This work described, from the accounting concept viewpoint, the argumentation of the two currents, one that defended and the other that criticized the regulations in force until 2004, particularly considering the evolutions and limitations of the mathematical models of option pricing. The concepts of definition of expense, the principle of comparability, the sufficiency of the footnotes as substitutes in the recording of accounting statements, the impact in profitability indexes, and the relation of accounting disclosure of the options with accounting frauds were also explored. These discussions, which had started at least 50 years ago, contributed for the revision of the relevant accounting standards and norms by the US accounting regulations authority (FASB), and for the wording of the first international standard by the international accounting regulation authority (IASB). Although the completion of this research has confirmed the existence of deviations in the accounting standard and norms over the matter, it also indicated that the new regulations shall not prevent the occurrence of new accounting frauds, and, that the solutions for this type of problem are more related to ethical issues.