The History of Accounting

It is easy for one to see how accounting has been a practice that has been around for many year, but did you know you can trace it all the way back to Ancient Rome? The Bible is a perfect example where accounting is shown in the Roman Empire. Luke 2:1 states that "there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." Everyone who lived in places that Rome occupied were required to pay these taxes, and the tax collectors used early accounting methods to document who had paid, and exactly how much. These early accounting methods were the basic form of bookkeeping. Bookkeeping is the recording of financial inflow and outflow in a business, or in this case, government.

Augustus, a Roman ruler during the third century, furthered the use of accounting by creating and enforcing different types of taxes. Some of these include professional fees, sales tax, and customs. What I find the most interesting about the taxing system during this time was that priests, elders in the village, or others. They would collect the tax from those below them, and acted almost as a middle man in the process (Rathbone). Today we do not follow this system because we each individually pay our taxes to the government. One reason this might have been the case in Ancient Rome is because this allowed fewer small tax donations, and more large tax donations organized by region. This would have made bookkeeping, or the recording of the tax easier for their form of accountant.

In the modern age, the industrial revolution called for a reform in the basic accounting practices. Business had developed into a more complex structure that the ancient forms of accounting that couldn't account for. In 1896 a group of accountants came together and formed the American Association of Public Accountants where they developed the CPA exam. This helped ensure uniformity across the accounting world. After the Great Depression the Securities Exchange Commission was created, which required companies to report financial statements to the government. This caused the accounting standards and regulations to become even more unified, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board was established (Schneider).

Today, these rules and organizations are followed and monitored by all accountants. Bookkeepers today often have a CPA degree that proves that further training and learning about accounting rules was studied. Through their training they know how to record taxes and the other types of payments that people in Ancient Rome were required to pay.

Work Cited

Rathbone, Dominic. "Taxation in Roman Egypt." Classical Review 57.2 (2007): 490-492. Academic           Search Premier. Web. 3 Dec. 2014.

Schneider, Bob. "Accounting Basics, History of Accounting." Investopedia. Web. 3 Dec. 2014.