At December 31, 2019, Jolie Inc. had a receivable of $500,000 from Relic Inc. on its statement of financial position. Relic had gone bankrupt, and no recovery is expected. Jolie proposes to write off the receivable as a prior period item.

CONCEPTS IN FED.TAX.,2020-W/ACCESS
20th Edition
ISBN:9780357110362
Author:Murphy
Publisher:Murphy
Chapter5: Introduction To Business Expenses
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 67P
icon
Related questions
Question

(a) Lara Croft has been hired as a new auditor for Jolie Inc. Ms. Croft has suggested the following accounting changes in regards to the company’s financial statements.

 

  1. At December 31, 2019, Jolie Inc. had a receivable of $500,000 from Relic Inc. on its statement of financial position. Relic had gone bankrupt, and no recovery is expected. Jolie proposes to write off the receivable as a prior period item.

 

  1. The client proposes the following changes in depreciation policies. (a) For office furniture and fixtures, it proposes to change from a 10-year useful life to an 8-year life. If this change had been made in prior years, retained earnings at December 31, 2019, would have been $250,000 less. The effect of the change on 2020 income alone is a reduction of $60,000. (b) For its equipment in the leasing division, the client proposes to adopt the sum-of-the-years’-digits depreciation method. The client had never used SYD before. The first year the client operated a leasing division was 2020. If straight-line depreciation were used, 2020 income would be $110,000 greater.

 

  1. In preparing its 2019 statements, one of the client’s bookkeepers overstated ending inventory by $178,000 because of a mathematical error. The client proposes to treat this item as a prior period adjustment.

 

  1. In the past, the client has spread pre-production costs in its furniture division over 5 years. Because its latest furniture is of the “fad” type, it appears that the largest volume of sales will occur during the first 2 years after introduction. Consequently, the client proposes to amortize pre-production costs on a per- unit basis, which will result in expensing most of such costs during the first 2 years after the furniture’s introduction. If the new accounting method had been used prior to 2020, retained earnings at December 31, 2019, would have been $215,000 less.

 

  1. For the nursery division, the client proposes to switch from FIFO to average-cost inventories because it believes that average-cost will provide a better matching of current costs with revenues. The effect of making this change on 2020 earnings will be an increase of $320,000. The client says that the effect of the change on December 31, 2019, retained earnings cannot be determined.

 

  1. To achieve a better matching of revenues and expenses in its building construction division, the client proposes to switch from the cost-recovery method of accounting to the percentage-of-completion method. Had the percentage-of-completion method been employed in all prior years, retained earnings at December 31, 2019, would have been $950,000 greater.

 

Instructions

(i) For each of the changes described above, decide whether: (1) The change involves an accounting policy, accounting estimate, or correction of an error. (2) Restatement of opening retained earnings is required.

Expert Solution
steps

Step by step

Solved in 4 steps

Blurred answer
Knowledge Booster
Accounting for Current liabilities, Provisions and Contingencies
Learn more about
Need a deep-dive on the concept behind this application? Look no further. Learn more about this topic, accounting and related others by exploring similar questions and additional content below.
Similar questions
  • SEE MORE QUESTIONS
Recommended textbooks for you
CONCEPTS IN FED.TAX., 2020-W/ACCESS
CONCEPTS IN FED.TAX., 2020-W/ACCESS
Accounting
ISBN:
9780357110362
Author:
Murphy
Publisher:
CENGAGE L
Intermediate Accounting: Reporting And Analysis
Intermediate Accounting: Reporting And Analysis
Accounting
ISBN:
9781337788281
Author:
James M. Wahlen, Jefferson P. Jones, Donald Pagach
Publisher:
Cengage Learning