ACCA对于会计职业生涯有帮助吗？

正确答案：
(b) [Joanne’s address] [Firm’s address]
Dear Joanne 5 February 2006
I am writing to you in order to set out the value added tax (VAT) issues you face on registering your trade, together with some
other aspects of VAT that are relevant to you.
Registration
VAT registration is compulsory once taxable supplies exceed ￡58,000. This turnover figure is based on the value of your
cumulative taxable supplies in the previous 12 months. You have an obligation to inform. Customs within 30 days of the end
of the month in which the annual limit is exceeded. Registration will become effective on the first day of the following month.
VAT registration is also required if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the taxable supplies in the following 30 days
will exceed ￡58,000. In such cases, notification is required by the end of that 30 day period with registration being effective
from the start of that period.
Based on your estimates of taxable supplies, you will exceed the annual limit in October 2006 when your cumulative turnover
will be ￡62,000. You will therefore have to inform. Customs by the end of November. Your registration will be effective as of
1 December 2006.
You also have the option of voluntarily registering prior to then in which case you will normally become registered from the
date you applied. This is useful where your sales are to VAT registered customers for whom the extra VAT would not be a cost.
You would then be able to recover VAT on your attributable costs. However, you will have to comply with the VAT
administrative requirements.
Recovery of pre-registration VAT
It is possible to claim the recovery of VAT incurred prior to registering for VAT. There are some conditions, however. The costs
of the goods or services must have been incurred for the purpose of the business and there are time limits. You have three
years from the effective date of registration to recover the VAT on fixed assets (such as your computer) but only six months in
the case of purchased services (such as the consultancy fees).
As a result, I would recommend that you apply for voluntary registration as soon as possible, as registering after 1 April 2006
will mean that you will be unable to reclaim the VAT on your consultancy fees.
I hope the above information is useful to you.
Yours sincerely,
A. Consultant.

正确答案：
(b) Separation of the roles of CEO and chairman
Benefits of separation of roles
The separation of the roles of chief executive and chairman was first provided for in the UK by the 1992 Cadbury provisions
although it has been included in all codes since. Most relevant to the case is the terms of the ICGN clause s.11 and OECD
VI (E) both of which provide for the separation of these roles. In the UK it is covered in the combined code section A2.
The separation of roles offers the benefit that it frees up the chief executive to fully concentrate on the management of the
organisation without the necessity to report to shareholders or otherwise become distracted from his or her executive
responsibilities. The arrangement provides a position (that of chairman) that is expected to represent shareholders’ interests
and that is the point of contact into the company for shareholders. Some codes also require the chairman to represent the
interests of other stakeholders such as employees.
Having two people rather than one at the head of a large organisation removes the risks of ‘unfettered powers’ being
concentrated in a single individual and this is an important safeguard for investors concerned with excessive secrecy or
lack of transparency and accountability. The case of Robert Maxwell is a good illustration of a single dominating
executive chairman operating unchallenged and, in so doing, acting illegally. Having the two roles separated reduces
the risk of a conflict of interest in a single person being responsible for company performance whilst also reporting on
that performance to markets. Finally, the chairman provides a conduit for the concerns of non-executive directors who,
in turn, provide an important external representation of external concerns on boards of directors.
Tutorial note: Reference to codes other than the UK is also acceptable. In all cases, detailed (clause number) knowledge
of code provisions is not required.
Accountability and separation of roles
In terms of the separation of roles assisting in the accountability to shareholders, four points can be made.
The chairman scrutinises the chief executive’s management performance on behalf of the shareholders and will be
involved in approving the design of the chief executive’s reward package. It is the responsibility of the chairman to hold
the chief executive to account on shareholders’ behalfs.
Shareholders have an identified person (chairman) to hold accountable for the performance of their investment. Whilst
day-to-day contact will normally be with the investor relations department (or its equivalent) they can ultimately hold
the chairman to account.
The presence of a separate chairman ensures that a system is in place to ensure NEDs have a person to report to outside the
executive structure. This encourages the freedom of expression of NEDs to the chairman and this, in turn, enables issues to
be raised and acted upon when necessary.
The chairman is legally accountable and, in most cases, an experienced person. He/she can be independent and more
dispassionate because he or she is not intimately involved with day-to-day management issues.

正确答案：

Tutorial note:
In order to apply any piece of legislation, judges have to determine its meaning. In other words they are required to interpret the
statute before them in order to give it meaning. The diffi culty, however, is that the words in statutes do not speak for themselves and
interpretation is an active process, and at least potentially a subjective one depending on the situation of the person who is doing
the interpreting.
Judges have considerable power in deciding the actual meaning of statutes, especially when they are able to deploy a number of
competing, not to say contradictory, mechanisms for deciding the meaning of the statute before them. There are, essentially, two
contrasting views as to how judges should go about determining the meaning of a statute – the restrictive, literal approach and the
more permissive, purposive approach.
(a) The literal approach
The literal approach is dominant in the English legal system, although it is not without critics, and devices do exist for
circumventing it when it is seen as too restrictive. This view of judicial interpretation holds that the judge should look primarily
to the words of the legislation in order to construe its meaning and, except in the very limited circumstances considered below,
should not look outside of, or behind, the legislation in an attempt to fi nd its meaning.
Within the context of the literal approach there are two distinct rules:
(i) The literal rule
Under this rule, the judge is required to consider what the legislation actually says rather than considering what it might
mean. In order to achieve this end, the judge should give words in legislation their literal meaning, that is, their plain,
ordinary, everyday meaning, even if the effect of this is to produce what might be considered an otherwise unjust or
undesirable outcome (Fisher v Bell (1961)) in which the court chose to follow the contract law literal interpretation of
the meaning of offer in the Act in question and declined to consider the usual non-legal literal interpretation of the word
(offer).

(ii) The golden rule
This rule is applied in circumstances where the application of the literal rule is likely to result in what appears to the court
to be an obviously absurd result. It should be emphasised, however, that the court is not at liberty to ignore, or replace,
legislative provisions simply on the basis that it considers them absurd; it must fi nd genuine diffi culties before it declines
to use the literal rule in favour of the golden one. As examples, there may be two apparently contradictory meanings to a
particular word used in the statute, or the provision may simply be ambiguous in its effect. In such situations, the golden
rule operates to ensure that preference is given to the meaning that does not result in the provision being an absurdity.
Thus in Adler v George (1964) the defendant was found guilty, under the Offi cial Secrets Act 1920, with obstruction
‘in the vicinity’ of a prohibited area, although she had actually carried out the obstruction ‘inside’ the area.
(b) The purposive approach
The purposive approach rejects the limitation of the judges’ search for meaning to a literal construction of the words of
legislation itself. It suggests that the interpretative role of the judge should include, where necessary, the power to look beyond
the words of statute in pursuit of the reason for its enactment, and that meaning should be construed in the light of that purpose
and so as to give it effect. This purposive approach is typical of civil law systems. In these jurisdictions, legislation tends to set
out general principles and leaves the fi ne details to be fi lled in later by the judges who are expected to make decisions in the
furtherance of those general principles.
European Community (EC) legislation tends to be drafted in the continental manner. Its detailed effect, therefore, can only be
determined on the basis of a purposive approach to its interpretation. This requirement, however, runs counter to the literal
approach that is the dominant approach in the English system. The need to interpret such legislation, however, has forced
a change in that approach in relation to Community legislation and even with respect to domestic legislation designed to
implement Community legislation. Thus, in Pickstone v Freemans plc (1988), the House of Lords held that it was permissible,
and indeed necessary, for the court to read words into inadequate domestic legislation in order to give effect to Community
law in relation to provisions relating to equal pay for work of equal value. (For a similar approach, see also the House of Lords’
decision in Litster v Forth Dry Dock (1989) and the decision in Three Rivers DC v Bank of England (No 2) (1996).) However,
it has to recognise that the purposive rule is not particularly modern and has its precursor in a long established rule of statutory
interpretation, namely the mischief rule.

The mischief rule
This rule permits the court to go behind the actual wording of a statute in order to consider the problem that the statute is
supposed to remedy.
In its traditional expression it is limited by being restricted to using previous common law rules in order to decide the operation
of contemporary legislation. Thus in Heydon’s case (1584) it was stated that in making use of the mischief rule the court
should consider what the mischief in the law was which the common law did not adequately deal with and which statute law
had intervened to remedy. Use of the mischief rule may be seen in Corkery v Carpenter (1950), in which a man was found
guilty of being drunk in charge of a carriage although he was in fact only in charge of a bicycle.