Analysis and auditing of the existing accounting system of the political party in Turkey

Political parties that were formed when communites came together and got organized are the inevitable components of representative democrasies. Although the relationship between people and politics is as old as the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, the birth of political parties dates back to two centuries. Before political parties originated in the modern sense, people made themselves understood through schools of thought, public clubs, phlosophical organizations and groups of parliaments. Starting with the developments in democrasy, people started to express their opinions by way of political parties, which are more structered organizations.Political parties that appeared at different times in different parts of the world were first seen in Turkey when the second onstitutional monarchy was declared in 1908. They were mentioned in the laws in 1961 constitution and so were secured. Later on political parties were again mentioned in Political Parties Law numbered 648 in 1965 and were reorganized in Political Parties Law numbered 2820 in 1983. These laws stated various regulations related to financial structures of political parties. In addition they showed what the income and expense elements of social parties were and which principles should be applied as far as income and expenses were concerned. Although these issues were regulated in the constitution, we see that political parties have so far had many difficulties. Accounting activites which are far from the fundemental accounting reasoning, cause some financial damage to legal personaltiy of political parties. The fact that this issue is not clarifed in our constitution and that political parties do not have a common accounting system leads to differentapplications; in addition nontransparent financil reporting system bring about some reactions of related groups.As regards the accounting structures of political parties, in this study a new accounting system has been porposed to political parties in order to remove certain defects both in laws and in applications. As a consequence, we have aimed to rest financial records of political parties on cause-and-effect relationship, to remove faulty applications, to present financial structures of political parties to the public with better financial printouts and therefore to secure transparency.