Goodwill - to be or not to be

Abstract

Accounting treatments for goodwill have always been shrouded in controversy. Diversity in standards and practices among countries in this area has further complicated the goodwill issue: Hence, the purpose of this report is to critically analyse the differing views offered by the various accounting bodies on goodwill accounting. Besides the evaluation of established literature to compare the vanous accounting standards established by the different accounting bodies and to analyse the various accounting treatments allowed by these standards, an empirical study was also carried out on the companies listed in the Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES) to identify the current accounting treatments for goodwill in Singapore.