Essay on Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations

In accounting there is much to be learned, about the financial aspects of a business. In the past five weeks I have learned the importance of financial reports and how they relate to the success of an establishment. These reports may include balance sheets and income statements, which help accountants and the public grasp the overall financial condition of a company. The information in these reports is really significant to, managers, owners, employees, and investors. Managers of a business can take and deduce financial

1a. One potential goal of earnings management is income smoothing. Briefly discuss why income smoothing might be a goal of management, including a discussion of incentives to smooth income. What techniques might be used to accomplish income smoothing beyond the selection of depreciation and inventory costing alternatives?

Such an intense focus has been placed on quarterly earnings as an indication of a company’s success by everyone from analysts to executives that ethics have for the most part been thrown out the window, sacrificed to the all important number, i.e. earnings per share. This is the theory in Alex Berenson’s book “The Number: How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corporate America.” This number has become part of a game to be played, a figure to be manipulated – beat the number and Wall Street all but throws a parade, miss it and a company’s stock may be abandoned. Take into account the incentives that executives have to beat the number and one can find plenty of reasons to manage earnings.

The estimates of ABC Company and all subsidiaries are thoroughly analyzed before their respective inclusion on the financial statement. If conditions warrant a change in accounting principle, the events surrounding the change are disclosed, and the effects of the changes in accounting principles are also disclosed. Although these instances are infrequent, full disclosure is practiced when they do occur. Our main areas of accounting estimates include estimates for intangible assets and trade receivables.

| |Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper analyzing the disclosures contained within the notes to the | | |

However, the introduction of such a law becomes increasingly difficult when the companies being questioned are some of the largest and wealthiest in the world. In order to truly understand the stature of these companies, one would need to look into some of the statistics regarding them. Remarkably, according to Al Jazeera America “the largest 500 U.S. companies would owe an estimated $620 billion in U.S. taxes” if they had to declare all their overseas stockpiles, of around $2.1 trillion (“Al Jazeera America”). In addition, it found that “three-quarters of the 500 biggest companies utilize tax havens”. The top three offenders included Apple, General Electric and Microsoft. In many cases according to the report, the money is not being utilized to improve foreign economies. By this they mean to say that, U.S. businesses were not using their overseas profit to build factories and employ individuals. Instead, the overseas profit was a result of accounting tricks purposely implemented to benefit the business alone. To put all of this in perspective, the United States is losing billions of dollars to foreign economies. These taxes are being introduced into countries such as Ireland and Luxembourg. In other words the money that should be invested in the United States of America on public services, is being

Financial reporting in the recent years through the SEC mandates has become one of the most important aspects to corporate management. Stamford International's problem is inherent in the discrepancy in reporting system and accounting irregularities from the various aspects of the business. Not only has this but Stamford, due to rapid growth not been able to accommodate for the expansionary activities like acquisitions of units and international transactions. The result has been the experience of loss in earnings-per-share. In the following analysis, the researcher thus will outline some of the problems that Stamford should address and resolve accordingly to be able to post a positive quarterly report and remain compliant with the

This article relates to our class because it shows how the actions of one organization or country affects many other in international business.

International trade is important and beneficial to business. However, international trade guides a safeguard of interests, specific business contract, defined law, forum of dispute settlement, and understanding of contract clauses. “A working knowledge of international law helps business owners and managers with global interests reduce risk and increase profits” (Melvin, 2011, P. 631). This enlightenment will address the international legal and ethical issues involved in international business transactions and compare such to domestic business operations.

Carcello, Hollingsworth and Mastrolia tested whether PCAOB annual inspections result in higher quality financial reporting (Carcello, Mastrolia, & Hollingsworth, 2011). They compare abnormal accruals reported by audit clients before and after initial inspections by PCAOB (Carcello, Mastrolia, & Hollingsworth, 2011). If the inspections result in improved auditing, they expect to see less earnings management after the initial inspection (Carcello, Mastrolia, & Hollingsworth, 2011). For comparison purposes, they make the same observations before and after AICPA peer review inspections made prior to SOX (Carcello, Mastrolia, & Hollingsworth, 2011). They find a significant decrease in income-increasing abnormal accruals in the first and second years

Caterpillar, Inc. just like other corporations have a legal obligation to establish ground rules and to abide by the law under which businesses are expected to operate. There is a codified ethics that businesses must abide by and those code of conducts includes responsibilities to abide by the rule of conducts in their financial reporting. This is especially important for the accountants of businesses because accounting professionals most likely are subject to the AICPA code of professional conduct that involves rules and policies in professionalism and ethics. In recent similar cases of tax evasion, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken enforcement action in the offshore tax avoidance issues. The

Increase in the profits above the actual budget can be attributed to 20% increase in sales in 2009. Although Jean’s profits were above the actual budget, French Division’s earnings were much lower than what it could have been, had they budgeted for the actual volume of sales that they ended up selling. We can partly attribute this decrease in earnings to the fact

Intercompany transactions could occur across national borders, it would lead MNC companies to get more exposure to the differences of the tax regulations between countries. This might lead MNC companies to set up their objective to minimize their taxes through the use of discretionary transfer prices. These issues are attracted the attention of the member of the U.S. senate, foreign governments and international organization such as the OECD, G20 and European Union (EU).

Ball, R. / Kothari, S. / Robin, A. (2000): The effect of international institutional factors on properties of accounting earnings, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Vol. 29, (2000) pp. 1-51.

 an analysis of the company’s accounting policies that are likely to affect interpretation of its financial reports (at least 3 policies)