...1. Hoffman, Raabe, Maloney, and Willis, CPAs 5191 Natorp Boulevard Mason, OH 45040 March 5, 2010 Mr. Donald Dewey 4321 Mt. Vernon Road Dover, DE 19901 Dear Don: At the recent Chamber of Commerce meeting, you asked me about the tax advantages of having Van, your son, claim Debra, your daughter, as a qualifying child. If Van can treat Debra as his qualifying child, he qualifies for a dependency exemption, the child tax credit, and the earned income tax credit. On the other hand if you claim Debra, the only benefit available is a dependency exemption—your income is too high to permit the use of either the child tax credit or earned income tax credit. A dependency exemption yields a greater tax benefit to you than to Van, but the tax saving is by far outweighed by the unavailability of the two credits. Consequently, the family would save taxes if Van claims Debra as his qualifying child. In such a case, you would have to forgo the dependency exemption for Debra. Until 2009, the procedure suggested in the preceding paragraph was permissible. However, in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, Congress changed the rules. Under current law, another eligible taxpayer may claim a person as a qualified child only if he or she has an adjusted gross income (AGI) higher than the highest AGI of any of the person’s parents. Clearly, the new condition eliminates Van because his AGI ($16,000) is not higher than the AGI of both you and Mary. Therefore, regardless...
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...First Time Investments 1 First Time Investments: An Elementary Explanation for New Shareholders Jill Van Hill Accounting 302 Professor Wallace 10/03/2014 First Time Investments 2 First Time Investments: An Elementary Explanation for New Shareholders An investor can be from a number of different sources. On one hand, they could be a major corporation that not only sells its own stock, but also owns shares in other companies. On the other hand, they could be a first time investor looking to exercise some extra money and see if they can turn a profit. Either way, the stock market can be a confusing and intimidating place. Every investor needs to have a basic understand of where the shares of stock are coming from and what exactly is involved. To help with this elementary understanding, we will observe and address few questions. 1. What are the distinguishing characteristics between different shares of stock? 2. What are the benefits to the investor? 3. What is par value and why is it important? What Are The Distinguishing Characteristics Between Different Shares of Stock To fully understand and grasp the full concept we need to break it all down into bite sized, comprehensible pieces and the New Oxford American Dictionary helps to provide these definitions. In order to become a shareholder in a company an individual needs to purchase shares of stock. A share is considered to be a...
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...fin 1060 Budget Killer Quiz My main budget killer is spending money without a plan. Although I am usually tight with spending, I sometimes buy wants rather than necessities. My budget calculations from last week proves my weakness of unnecessary expenses such as Entertainment Expenses, going out to eat and the movies. If I plan to start now, rather than holding off financial planning which is another budget buster relevant to my case, my budget will improve. I can also work on my lack of discipline and not eat out as much, which will reduce my expenses. By creating a financial plan now rather than holding off and improving my lack of discipline, my budget will remain stable. My main budget killer of unplanned spending is similar to my friend Sesen's budget killer problem. We both share the same budget issues, possibly because we are under similar financial circumstances. We are both students receiving support from our parents and loans for financial help, so we don't always realize what exactly we're spending our money on. I think the tracking spending lessons from the Cash Course will aid both of us most in improving our financial planning. Deciphering small amounts spent throughout a couple weeks’ time will show us where exactly our money is going. For me, I can be able to see how much going out to eat and movie tickets add up. I can then use this information in my budgeting, and possibly develop a control system to reduce my expenses. For Sesen, she will...
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...considering is accounting. I decided I wanted to do accounting back when one of my cousins became an accountant. She ended up getting her CPA and a full time job at the place she interned at, which ultimately made me want to do the same. One path I thought about taking with this major is to be a forensic accountant. Before I became an accounting major, I was a criminal justice major, so getting into forensic accounting is something that I am very interested in. With this career, I would try and detect crimes, such as fraud, and would have the opportunity to work for government agencies or law firms. Being a forensic accountant is probably my first choice. Another field that I would be interested in is being a...
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...[Introduction] Two major careers that individuals tend to pursue their career in are accounting and psychology. [Accountants have many duties and tasks such as preparing, examining, analyzing accounting records, and other financial reports. Accountants compute taxes owed and prepare tax returns, ensuring compliance with payment, reporting and other tax requirements. Accountants analyze business operations, costs, financial commitments, and obligations to project future revenues and expenses or to provide advice. Accountants also prepare forms and manuals for accounting and bookkeeping personnel, and direct their work activities. They also develop, maintain, and analyze budgets, while preparing periodic reports that compare budgeted costs...
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...2014 SUBJECT: Cohen & Zarowin 2010 Analysis The purpose of this memo is to analyze and explain the findings of Cohen and Zarowin 2010. Cohen and Zarowin 2010 is an academic research paper that looked into the difference between real activities and accrual management post-seasoned equity offering performance. It mainly addresses the severity of engaging in manipulations in each of those management activities. This memo will first cover the main question and importance of the research. Then, it will discuss what accrual based and real earnings management are. Next, it will discuss what the two types of earnings management are and the key difference between the two. Next, it will discuss the main findings of the paper. At the end it will discuss whether this information would be useful to debt or equity investors. The main research question that was being answered was whether, and how, firms engage in real earnings management around SEOs and how real and accrual-based earnings management interact around these important corporate events. This is interesting and important because this area has been receiving increasing interest, yet this particular research has never been done. It will answer a question that will affect many companies. Equity and Debt Investors September 4, 2014 Page 2 This paper defines accrual-based management as firms managing their earnings upward around SEOs. This misleads the stock market because it seems like earnings are higher than they are. Real...
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...Accounting Information Systems Research Paper Abstract The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was enacted into law in 2002 in the wake of corporation financial reporting scandals involving large publicly held companies. SOX instituted new strict financial regulations with the intent of improving accounting practices and protecting investors from corporate misconduct. SOX requires corporate executives to vouch for the accuracy of financial statements, and to institute and monitor effective internal controls over financial reporting. The cost of implementing an effective internal control structure are onerous, and SOX inflicts opportunity costs upon an enterprise as executives have become more risk adverse due to fears of incrimination. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) was created by SOX to oversee the accounting process and dictate independence requirements for auditors and auditing committees. The PCAOB proposed regulations must be approved by the SEC before they are enacted. Since the passage of SOX, the IT department has become critical in designing and implementing the internal controls in company accounting information systems. The Information Technology Governance Institute (ITGI) created a framework called Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) to provide guidance for companies to implement and monitor IT governance. Accounting Information Systems Research Paper The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 changed the...
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...Accounting Information Systems Research Paper Abstract The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was enacted into law in 2002 in the wake of corporation financial reporting scandals involving large publicly held companies. SOX instituted new strict financial regulations with the intent of improving accounting practices and protecting investors from corporate misconduct. SOX requires corporate executives to vouch for the accuracy of financial statements, and to institute and monitor effective internal controls over financial reporting. The cost of implementing an effective internal control structure are onerous, and SOX inflicts opportunity costs upon an enterprise as executives have become more risk adverse due to fears of incrimination. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) was created by SOX to oversee the accounting process and dictate independence requirements for auditors and auditing committees. The PCAOB proposed regulations must be approved by the SEC before they are enacted. Since the passage of SOX, the IT department has become critical in designing and implementing the internal controls in company accounting information systems. The Information Technology Governance Institute (ITGI) created a framework called Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) to provide guidance for companies to implement and monitor IT governance. Accounting Information Systems Research Paper The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 changed the...
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...ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING EDUCATION Vol. 25, No. 2 2010 pp. 227–244 American Accounting Association DOI: 10.2308/iace.2010.25.2.227 What It Means to be an Accounting Professor: A Concise Career Guide for Doctoral Students in Accounting Brooke Beyer, Don Herrmann, Gary K. Meek, and Eric T. Rapley ABSTRACT: The purpose of this paper is to provide a concise career guide for current and potential doctoral students in accounting and, in the process, help them gain a greater awareness of what it means to be an accounting professor. The guide can also be used by accounting faculty in doctoral programs as a starting point in mentoring their doctoral students. We begin with foundational guidance to help doctoral students better understand the “big picture” surrounding the academic accounting environment. We then provide specific research guidance and publishing guidance to help improve the probability of publication success. Actions are suggested that doctoral students and new faculty can take to help jump-start their academic careers. We finish with guidance regarding some important acronyms of special interest to doctoral students in accounting. Keywords: career guidance; doctoral students; research; publishing. INTRODUCTION igher education faces a severe, and growing, shortage of accounting professors. As a result, the job prospects for new accounting doctoral graduates are very good and are getting better. Starting salaries are increasing, but so are the requirements...
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...[pic] ACCOUNTING 26:010:652 Advanced Topics in Management Accounting Fall 2009 Instructor: Dr. Michael Alles Office: 1WP 928 Office Hours: F 9:00-10:00 or by appointment Email: alles@business.rutgers.edu Phone: (973) 353 5352 COURSE OBJECTIVES In recent years my colleagues and I have noticed that when we are recruiting we come across newly minted PhD students who are usually highly technically proficient in terms of being able to run regressions, do statistical testing, solve analytic models or whatever, but they often fail to demonstrate that they have thoroughly thought about their papers—in other words, when you push them about the implicit and explicit assumptions and implications of their research models, it appears that they haven’t really given these matters much thought at all.[1] Too often they fall back on saying that they are doing what they are doing because that is the way it is done in the prior literature, which is more of an excuse than a answer. (Of course, once a researcher reaches a certain age, they all feel that youngsters aren’t as good as they were in the good old days!) Therefore, in this class we shall go beyond simply studying research in managerial accounting. For many of you, this is your first introduction to accounting research and to PhD level class. Hence, in these classes we shall also learn how to solve business problems systematically and to understand what it means to have thoroughly “thought through” a paper. We begin...
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...Global Perspectives on Accounting Education Volume 6, 2009, 25-45 READING AND UNDERSTANDING ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN ACCOUNTING: A GUIDE FOR STUDENTS Teresa P. Gordon College of Business and Economics University of Idaho Moscow, Idaho USA Jason C. Porter College of Business and Economics University of Idaho Moscow, Idaho USA ABSTRACT The ability to read and understand academic research can be an important tool for practitioners in an increasingly complex accounting and business environment. This guide was developed to introduce students to the world of academic research. It is not intended for PhD students or others who wish to perform academic research. Instead, the guide should make published academic research more accessible and less intimidating so that future practitioners will be able to read empirical research and profitably apply the relevant findings. The guide begins by examining the importance of academic research for practitioners in accounting and next reviews the basics of the research process. With that background in place, we then give some guidelines and helpful hints for reading and evaluating academic papers. This guide has been used for several years to introduce master’s degree students to academic literature in an accounting theory class. After reading this guide and seeing a demonstration presentation by the professor, students have been able to successfully read and discuss research findings. Key words: Understanding empirical research, supplemental readings...
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...part of the research paper should outline the different offices and bureaus of financial reporting and why they are significant. The second part of the research paper will present some positive and negative examples of financial reporting results and offer analysis about them. These examples can incorporate both current events and historical events. Contract Theory * After explaining contract theory and how agencies arrange incentives, the research can focus on how this theory is a blend of workplace practice and economics. This paper will heavily rely on the fields of law and economics, and should explore situations such as moral hazards, adverse selection and signaling. Conclusions of this paper will focus on the larger implications for the field of accounting. Sponsored Links Read more: Suggested Topics for Research Papers on Accounting | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_7975932_suggested-topics-research-papers-accounting.html#ixzz24oQfrtTV Productivity Measurement * Even though productivity has become a common household word, the concepts behind it are very complex. A research paper on this topic would explore the many kinds of productivity measurement in a variety of industries. The effects and implications of this productivity in the field of accounting and business management is the main focus of the research. Both the technical and managerial concepts of this topic should be explored and then related back to accounting. Cash Flow Accounting * While...
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...Accounting research is hard to define because it has shifted over time. As a rough overview, early accounting research (pre-1960s) was mostly normative (i.e., argued for the “correct” accounting treatment, or what should be). With the advent of the Journal of Accounting Research, advances in finance such as the efficient market hypothesis, creation of large data sets and the statistical abilities to analyze them (i.e., computers), and the publication of Ball and Brown’s seminal work in 1968, accounting research moved into positive research (i.e., examining what is rather than what should be). Although this change has had its critics, it has resulted in a significant increase in research output (and many new journals). A cynical definition of research is: any paper that cites a lot of other accounting papers must be accounting research. This “quick and dirty” definition restricts accounting research to topics and methodologies that are well established in the literature; it is “safe” but somewhat limiting. More rigorously, Oler, Oler, and Skousen (2009) attempt to characterize accounting research by looking at the topics, research methodologies, and citations made by papers published in a set of six top accounting journals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR). Their work can be criticized, though, because they do not consider all accounting journals, and because their categorizations of topics (6 of them) and research methodologies (7 of them) are broad. In spite of shortcomings...
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...| Counting since 19.11.2005 <http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~ts/wbfa/wbfa.htm> URN:NBN:fi-fe20051937 Copyright © 2002-2005 by Prof. Timo Salmi, Prof. Jussi Nikkinen & Prof. Petri Sahlström Paper last modified Thu 24-Nov-2005 11:57 Subsequent references last appended Tue 9-Nov-2010 | Timo Salmi, Jussi Nikkinen &Petri Sahlström Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty of Business Studies University of Vaasa, Finland The Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Basis of Financial Ratio Analysis Revisited With the Modern Developments in the Web-Based Publishing Abstract This web-based publication is an addendum to a previous review of the research and research trends in financial ratio analysis. The first purpose is to add more current references to the previous review. The second purpose is to emphasize the changes facilitated by the modern World Wide Web based publication practices and their impact on the availability of scientific publications. The new references are listed only without detailed reviewing, since no drastic additions have come to the fore in the field. However, it is felt that the additions are sufficient to warrant this addendum made readily possible by the option of making this publication available online. Keywords: Financial statement analysis, financial ratios, review, electronic publishing Referencing: Salmi, Timo, Jussi Nikkinen & Petri Sahlström (2005). The Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Basis of Financial Ratio Analysis Revisited...
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...Introduction This paper examines the development of positive accounting theory (PAT) and compares it with three standard accounts of science. There is some confusion about what PAT is. If the definition of accounting theory (i.e., accounting theory seeks to explain and predict accounting and auditing practice) given in Watts and Zimmerman’s 1986 book is taken to mean PAT, studies of accounting choices and auditing practices constitute PAT. At the same time, they also seek to explain the economics-based empirical literature in accounting and they describe, in addition to accounting choice studies, capital market-based accounting research. They point out that Ball and Brown (1968) initially popularized positive research in accounting, suggesting that PAT includes both capital market-based accounting research and research in accounting choices. This paper takes PAT to include both research programs. This usage is consistent with Watts and Zimmerman’s (1986) assertion that when they use the term “positive” to differentiate it from “prescriptive” theory. Positive Accounting Theory and Science by M. Humayun Kabir Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand Abstract This paper examines the development of positive accounting theory (PAT) and compares it with three standard accounts of science: Popper (1959), Kuhn (1996), and Lakatos (1970). PAT has been one of the most influential accounting research programs during...
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