信息！ACCA关注4月70城房地产价格延续微涨态势， 总体稳定吗？

正确答案：

(a) (i) IAS12 ‘Income Taxes’ adopts a balance sheet approach to accounting for deferred taxation. The IAS adopts a full
provision approach to accounting for deferred taxation. It is assumed that the recovery of all assets and the settlement
of all liabilities have tax consequences and that these consequences can be estimated reliably and are unavoidable.
IFRS recognition criteria are generally different from those embodied in tax law, and thus ‘temporary’ differences will
arise which represent the difference between the carrying amount of an asset and liability and its basis for taxation
purposes (tax base). The principle is that a company will settle its liabilities and recover its assets over time and at that
point the tax consequences will crystallise.

Thus a change in an accounting standard will often affect the carrying value of an asset or liability which in turn will
affect the amount of the temporary difference between the carrying value and the tax base. This in turn will affect the
amount of the deferred taxation provision which is the tax rate multiplied by the amount of the temporary differences(assuming a net liability for deferred tax.)

 

正确答案：
(b) Benchmarking
Benchmarks enable goals to be set that may be based on either external measures of ‘best practice’ organisations or internal
cross-functional comparisons which exhibit ‘best practice’. A primary aim of the traditional budgeting process is the setting of
realistic targets that can be achieved within the budget period. The setting of realistic targets means that the extent of
underperformance against ‘best practice’ standards loses visibility, and thus short-term financial targets remain the
predominant focus of the traditional budgeting process. It is arguable that because the budgetary reporting system purports
to give managers ‘control’, there is very little real incentive to seek out benchmarks which may be used to raise budgeted
performance targets. Much depends upon the prevailing organisational culture since benchmarking may be viewed as an
attempt by top management to impose impossible targets upon operational managers. The situation is further exacerbated
where organisations do not measure their success relative to their competition.
Balanced scorecard
The Balanced scorecard is often misunderstood as a consequence of the failure by top management to ensure that it is
implemented effectively within the organisation. Thus it may be viewed as the addition of a few non-financial measures to
the conventional budget. In an attempt to overcome this misperception many management teams now establish a
performance-rewards linkage based upon the achievement of Scorecard targets for the forthcoming budget period.
Unfortunately this can precipitate dysfunctional behaviour at every level within the organisation.
Even in situations where the Scorecard has been well-designed and well-implemented it is difficult for it to gain widespread
acceptance. This is because all too often there exists a culture which places a very high value upon the achievement of the
fixed annual targets in order to avoid the loss of status, recognition and rewards.
A well-constructed Scorecard contains a mix of long-term and short-term measures and therefore drives the company in the
direction of medium-term strategic goals which are supported by cross-functional initiatives. On the other hand, the budgeting
process focuses the organisation on the achievement of short-term financial goals supported by the initiatives of individual
departments. Budgets can also act as an impediment to the acceptance of responsibility by local managers for the
achievement of the Scorecard targets. This is often the case in situations where a continued emphasis exists on meeting shortterm
e.g. quarterly targets.
Activity-based models
Traditional budgets show the costs of functions and departments (e.g. staff costs and establishment costs) instead of the costs
of those activities that are performed by people (e.g. receipt of goods inwards, processing and dispatch of orders etc). Thus
managers have no visibility of the real ‘cost drivers’ of their business. In addition, it is probable that a traditional budget
contains a significant amount of non-value-added costs that are not visible to the managers. The annual budget also tends
to fix capacity for the forthcoming budget period thereby undermining the potential of Activity-based management (ABM)
analysis to determine required capacity from a customer demand perspective. Those experienced in the use of ABM
techniques are used to dealing with such problems, however their tasks would be much easier to perform. and their results
made more reliable if these problems were removed.

正确答案：

(a) (i) Leaving the service of a board
Resignation with or without notice. Any director is free to withdraw his or her labour at any time but there is normally
a notice period required to facilitate an orderly transition from the outgoing chief executive to the incoming one.
Not offering himself/herself for re-election. Terms of office, which are typically three years, are renewable if the director
offers him or herself for re-election and the shareholders support the renewal. Retirement usually takes place at the end
of a three-year term when the director decides not to seek re-election.
Death in service when, obviously, the director is unable to either provide notice or seek retirement.
Failure of the company. When a company fails, all directors’ contracts are cancelled although this need not signal the
end of the directors’ involvement with company affairs as there may be ongoing legal issues to be resolved.
Being removed e.g. by being dismissed for disciplinary offences. It is relatively easy to ‘prove’ a disciplinary offence but
much more difficult to ‘prove’ incompetence. The nature of disciplinary offences are usually made clear in the terms and
conditions of employment and company policy.
Prolonged absence. Directors unable to perform. their duties owing to protracted absence, for any reason, may be
removed. The length of qualifying absence period varies by jurisdiction.
Being disqualified from being a company director by a court. Directors can be banned from holding directorships by a
court for a number of reasons including personal bankruptcy and other legal issues.
Failing to be re-elected if, having offered him or herself for re-election, shareholders elect not to re-appoint.
An ‘agreed departure’ such as by providing compensation to a director to leave.

(ii) Discuss Miss Hoiku’s statement
The way that directors’ contracts and company law are written (in most countries) makes it difficult to remove a director
such as Mr Smith from office during an elected term of office so in that respect, Miss Hoiku is correct. Unless his contract
has highly specific performance targets built in to it, it is difficult to remove Mr Smith for incompetence in the
short-term as it is sometimes difficult to assess the success of strategies until some time has passed. If the alleged
incompetence is within Mr Smith’s term of office (typically three years) then it will usually be necessary to wait until the
director offers himself for re-election. The shareholders can then simply not re-elect the incompetent director (in this
case, Mr Smith). The most likely way to achieve the departure of Mr Smith within his term of office will be to ‘encourage’
him to resign by other directors failing to support him or by shareholders issuing a vote of no confidence at an AGM or
EGM. This would probably involve offering him a suitable financial package to depart at a time chosen by the other
members of the board or company shareholders.
(b) Importance of the chairman’s statement
The chairman’s statement (or president’s letter in some countries) is an important and usually voluntary item, typically carried
at the very beginning of an annual report. In general terms, it is intended to convey important messages to shareholders in
general, strategic terms. As a separate section from other narrative reporting sections of an annual report, it offers the
chairman the opportunity to inform. shareholders about issues that he or she feels it would be beneficial for them to be aware
of. This independent communication is an important part of the separation of the roles of CEO and chairman.
In the case of TQ Company, the role of the chairman is of particular importance because of the dominance of Mr Smith.
Miss Hoiku had a particular responsibility to use her most recent statement to inform. shareholders about going concern issues
notwithstanding the difficulties that might cause in her relationship with Mr Smith. Miss Hoiku has an ethical as well as an
agency responsibility to express her independence in the chairman’s statement and convey issues relevant to company value
to the company’s shareholders. She can use her chairman’s statement for this purpose.

(c) Criticise the structure of the reward package that Mr Smith awarded himself
The balance between basic to performance related pay was very poor. Mr Smith, perhaps being aware that the prospect of
gaining much performance related income was low, took the opportunity to increase the fixed element of his income to
compensate. This was not only unprofessional and unethical on Mr Smith’s part, but it also represented very bad value for
shareholders. Having exercised his share options and sold the resulting shares, there was now no element of alignment of
his package with shareholder interests at all. His award to himself of an ‘excessively’ expensive company car was also not
in the shareholders’ interests. The fact that he exercised and sold all of his share options means that he will now have no
personal financial motivation to take strategic decisions intended to increase TQ Company’s share value. This represents a
poor degree of alignment between Mr Smith’s package and the interests of TQ’s shareholders.
(d) Criticise Miss Hoiku’s performance as chairman of TQ Company
The case describes a particularly poor performance by a company chairman. It is a key function of the chairman to represent
the shareholders’ interests in the company and Miss Hoiku has clearly failed in this duty.
A key reason for her poor performance was her reported inability or unwillingness to face up to Mr Smith who was clearly a
domineering personality. A key quality of a company chairman is his or her ability and willingness to personally challenge the
chief executive if necessary.
She failed to ensure that a committee structure was in place, allowing as she did, the remunerations committee to atrophy
when two members left the company.
Linked to this, it appears from the case that the two non-executive directors that left were not replaced and again, it is a part
of the chairman’s responsibility to ensure that an adequate number of non-executives are in place on the board.
She inexplicably allowed Mr Smith to design his own rewards package and presided over him reducing the performance
related element of his package which was clearly misaligned with the shareholders’ interests.
When Mr Smith failed to co-ordinate the other directors because of his unspecified business travel, she failed to hold him to
account thereby allowing the company’s strategy to fail.
There seems to have been some under-reporting of potential strategic problems in the most recent annual report. A ‘future
prospects’ or ‘continuing business’ statement is often a required disclosure in an annual report (in many countries) and there is evidence that this statement may have been missing or misleading in the most recent annual report.