One of the main purposes for adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is the quest for comparability between financial statements within the same country, over time, and between different countries. IFRS have the feature of allowing accounting choices in most of their standards. However, the existence of such flexibility in the process for recognizing, measuring, and disclosing as sets and liabilities may impact on comparability. IFRS have been criticized both due to their accounting choices and the adoption of the fair value paradigm. This article examines these two issues, investigating the choice of the cost model versus the choice of the fair value model for investment properties (IPs), an option guaranteed under the terms of the International Accounting Standard (IAS) 40. This research aimed to identify the comparability degree and the factors that determine the accounting choices made by managers of IPs, in Brazilian and Portuguese listed companies, within the periods from 2010 to 2012. Comparability, within and between countries, was identified by the T-index and the search for the determining factors of accounting choices made by managers was performed by means of a logistic re gression analysis. As a result, it was found that, despite the accounting choices allowed by IAS 40, there was a mean comparability between the accounting practices of firms in these countries, but showing a decrease in the index over the years. The explanatory factors identified were auditing by one of the big four (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, KPMG, or Ernst & Young), companies' indeb tedness, relative importance of IPs' balance, net profit, and less experience of Brazil in using the fair value method to appraise IPs.
comparability; accounting choices; IAS 40; investment properties; T-index
