During the last years, a great debate about accounting treatment of urbanization proceeds has arisen. The various interpretations that, in the course of the last decade, have been proposed on this matter can be ascribed to the behaviour of the Italian Legislator that, from time to time, has inserted or deleted constraints to the use of urbanization proceeds. Moreover, it is known that the accounting treatment of urbanization proceeds may have a great impact on the financial equilibriums of the annual budget of municipalities. The urbanization proceeds are, in fact, not repetitive and highly variable revenues. In this paper, after having briefly analysed the main steps of the normative evolution about accounting treatment of urbanization proceeds, the "point of view" of 106 financial services managers is investigated in order to 1) describe the most common behaviours with reference to some relevant issues that relate the accounting treatment of urbanization proceeds; 2) determine the effects that the accounting treatment of urbanization proceeds may have on financial stability of municipalities (in particular, on the financial equilibriums of the annual budget). Findings and implications are discussed.
Keywords: Urbanization proceeds, municipalities, annual budget, financial equilibriums