Chapter 7 Accounting for Financial Management Answers to Beginning-of-Chapter Questions

This idea of reducing taxes to increase investment within the economy sounds like a good idea but hasn’t lived up to its expectations historically. The idea of supply side economics wasn’t a new idea for the American tax code. During the early 1920s, income tax rates were cut multiple times which averaged to a total of most rates being cut by a little less than half. The Mellon Tax Cuts named after Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. He believed that changes in income tax rates causes individuals to change their behavior and practices. As taxes rise, tax payers attempt to reduce taxable income by either working less, retiring earlier, reducing business expansions, restructure companies or spending more money on accountants to find tax loopholes. If executed properly tax cuts can actually benefit economic growth, data from the Internal Revenue Service(IRS) showed that the across-the-board tax cuts in the early 1920s resulted in greater tax payments and larger tax share paid by those in the higher incomes. As the marginal tax rate on the highest income earners were cut from 60 percent or more to just 25 percent, the amount that this tax group payed soared from around 300 million to 700 million per year. (See Figure 2) This sudden massive increase in revenue allowed the U.S. economy to rapidly expand during the mid and late 20s. Between 1920 to 1929, real gross national product grew at an annual average rate of 4.7 percent and

* Corporations incur taxes at the corporate level at marginal rates; while, distributions to shareholders are taxed at dividend rate

When you’re looking at the income statement, you can get information about profitability for a particular period. This is also called the profit and loss statement. The income statement is composed of both income and expenses. This statement can be used to deduct expenses from income and report either a net profit or net loss for that period. This statement will deduct all expenses from income and then report your net profit or net loss for that period. This will allow the business owner to determine if the business is bringing in a good amount of revenue to make a profit. The cash flow statement shows the movement in cash and balance over period. The cash flow can vary depending on the operating activities, investing and financing activities. This statement provides one business owner with insight to the company’s liquidity which is vital to the growth of the business. Reinvesting in business is very important, looking at the statement of retained earnings will tell a business owner how much were reinvested in the company. After profitable period, every big business has to give some of its profits to stockholders, and keep the rest amount as retained earnings. Out of all statements, retaining statement is important to companies that sells stocks to the public. This statement can also provide you with assets and liabilities information. These informations can be used to assess the financial health of your business. The results of a balance sheet will help the business owners to show the risk of liquidity and credit. Looking at these information you can measure trends and relationships to show where in the areas you can improve. These can also be compared to similar companies to show how the business measures up to leading competitors (Ali, 2010). In summary, the financial statements can provide a business owner

Cutting down individual taxes will generate more employment and will help generate more money, it will create more tax revenue, according to Mike DeBones, from “House Passes 2018 Budget, Taking a Crucial Step toward Tax Overhaul.” He states that “Our budget specifically paves the way for pro-growth tax reform that will reduce taxes for middle-class Americans and free up American businesses to grow and hire,” House Budget Committee Chairman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) said during floor debate Wednesday. I agree if the tax is

Democrats are pushing for this because in the 90’s when taxes were set up like this, the economy was very strong, but, “in the seven years since, Republicans have produced $3.8 trillion in new debt and made China our national banker,” (Skiba). Pushing to reduce the national debt, democrats want to create equality in the economy with taxes. Along with progressive taxation, democrats are more favorable towards government spending, especially for things such as social security and entitlement programs that help the masses. The Democratic Party would like a more regulated economy where the federal government steps in to create balance and equality.

To remove upper income taxpayers from the paying taxes if they invested in long-term investments

"A revolutionary change in our tax system is fundamental to re-energizing the American economy and restoring the American dream" (Moore 1). Currently, there are two major plans being considered to try and fix the tax system in the United States. These two plans are the Flat Tax and the National Retail Sales Tax. "Both the Flat Tax and a National Sales Tax would replace today's discriminatory tax structure with a single low rate. Either plan would promote the kind of capital formation that America needs to boost workers' incomes and raise long-term economic growth" (Mitchell 1). This means that the flat tax would take away the savings from the government and pass them on to the citizens and businesses. By doing this, there would be a rise in long-term economic growth.

A common misconception that often prevents significant policy reform on this issue is the myth that decreasing tax rates on capital gains will dramatically help the economy. Since the 1950’s capital gains have been taxed at lower rates than income, and has been billed as a way to fuel economic growth (CNN). However, although a lower rate may spur risk-taking investments, it doesn’t have a proven correlation with economic growth. The Congressional Research Service analyzed economic

Also, the statement, “A higher capital-gains rate would just level the playing field” is taken from a skewed view of where some of the rich get their income from. Although, as Moore explains, he justifies that even though, capital gains and dividends are taxed at a lower rate, it is a tax that is on top of corporations’ taxes.

A simple way to improve the effectiveness of the tax cuts would be to lower the rate more for the middle class and to increase the corporate tax rate by a small amount. The new federal tax plan lowers tax rates overall, however, it is most beneficial to the highest tax brackets and corporations. Instead, the government should focus on lowering taxes for the middle class who will invest in the economy. The new tax plan is based on the theory of trickle-down economics which assumes people will spend their extra money therefore investing in the economy. The middle class is the most likely to spend any extra money, which grows the economy. Focusing tax cuts on the middle class would make the tax plan more effective as they will spend the extra money, “The most significant tax cuts should go to the middle class who are more likely to spend

In practice, dividend policy will be affected by taxes as tax rates for different categories of investors will differ. Also, a firm’s dividend policy is perceived by the financial markets to be a signaling mechanism. A cut back in dividends may signify that the firm perceives tough

The fact that shareholders are taxed twice through this repayment methodology infers that dividends are not their repayment technique of choice. Furthermore, paying out cash reserves through dividends also has the effect of both reducing the company’s assets and also inhibited the company’s ability to fund future growth as Dividends reduce the company’s retained earnings.

Dividends are subjected to higher tax rate compare to capital gain increased due to share buy-back. This discourages shareholders from desire to receive high dividends in place of higher capital gain as share values increase. A comparison is made below between the proposed capital structure and dividend policy.

The United States is in a recession; it has been facing some of the worse economic times since the Great Depression in the 1930’s. One option to fix the economy is to change the corporate tax rate. To lower it or to raise it, that is the question economists have been speculating. America's high corporate tax rate and worldwide system of taxation discourages U.S. companies from sending their foreign-source revenue home, which makes U.S. companies defenseless to foreign acquisition from the international opponents (Camp). Corporations and United States citizens have been fighting for a tax reform, which would hopefully help the American economy; either by lowering the corporate tax, or by raising the tax.

While conducting the analysis of EMI group’s dividend policy, one factor that stood out to us was the clientele effect. The clientele effect shows us who holds most of our outstanding shares. High tax-bracket individuals would prefer zero-to-low dividend payout to save on taxes. Low tax-bracket individuals would prefer a low-to-medium dividend payout, which gives them additional income while helping them save on taxes. An investing corporation would prefer a higher dividend payout because if they own a significant amount of shares, say 1 million, the income stream from that dividend would provide the company with more monetary resources while benefitting from tax exemptions. So before setting a dividend policy for EMI group, we must first