国际注册会计师报考资格，你符合吗？

正确答案：
(b) An illustration of each of the problems using the data from the Battamould division/TRG scenario is as follows:
Meeting only the lowest targets
– In the scenario, the budgeted variable cost of $200 per tonne has been agreed. There is no specific incentive for the
Bettamould division to try to achieve a better level of performance.
Using more resources than necessary
– In the scenario, the current budget allows for 5% machine idle time. There is evidence that a move to outsourcing
machine maintenance from a specialist company could help reduce idle time levels and permit annual output in excess
of 100,000 tonnes.
Making the bonus – whatever it takes
– At present, the only sanction/incentive is to achieve 100,000 tonnes of output. There is no mention of any sanction for
example, if processing losses (and hence costs) rise to 20% of material inputs.
Competing against other divisions, business units and departments
– At present, the Bettamould division sources its materials from chosen suppliers who have been used for some years.
There is evidence that materials of equal specification could be sourced for 40% of the annual requirement from another
TRG division which has spare capacity. Why has this not been investigated?
Ensuring that what is in the budget is spent
– In the Bettamould scenario, there is a fixed cost budget allowance of $50,000,000. We are told in the question that
salaries of all employees and management are paid on a fixed salary basis. Bettamould’s management will not want a
reduction in the fixed budget allowance, since this could lead to the need to reduce the number of employees, which
they may see as having a detrimental effect on the ability of the division to meet its annual budget output target of
100,000 tonnes.
Providing inaccurate forecasts
– In the scenario there may have been deliberate efforts to increase the agreed budget level of aspects of measures and
costs. For example, by putting forward the argument that the budget requirement of 15% processing losses is acceptable
because of the likelihood that ageing machinery will be less effective in the coming budget period.
Meeting the target but not beating it
– In the scenario the bonus of 5% of salary is payable as long as the 100,000 tonnes of output is achieved. This does
not require that actual results will show any other aspects of the budget being improved upon. For example there is no
need to consider a reduction in the current level of quality checks (25% of daily throughput) to the 10% level that current
evidence suggests is achieved by competitor companies. The current budget agreement allows the Bettamould division
to transfer its output to market based profit centres at $200 + $500 = $700 per tonne. There is no specified penalty
if costs exceed this target level.
Avoiding risks
– Bettamould has not yet incorporated the changes listed in note 4 in the question. For example why has the sourcing of
40% of required materials from another TRC division not been quantified and evaluated. It is possible that the division
with spare capacity could supply the material at cost (possibly based on marginal cost) which would be less than
currently paid to a supplier external to TRC. It may be that Bettamould have not pursued this possibility because of risk
factors relating to the quality of the material transferred or its continued availability where the supplying division had an
upturn in the level of more profitable external business.

正确答案：D

The substance is that there is no ‘free’ finance; its cost, as such, is built into the selling price.

正确答案：

difference will reduce in the year ending 31 May 2006 due to the projected growth in sales volumes of the Celer Transport
business. The average mail/parcels delivery of mail/parcels per vehicle of the Quicklink Ltd part of the business is budgeted
at 12,764 which is still 30·91% higher than that of the Celer Transport business.
As far as specialist activities are concerned, Quicklink Ltd is budgeted to generate average revenues per vehicle amounting to
￡374,850 whilst Celer Transport is budgeted to earn an average of ￡122,727 from each of the vehicles engaged in delivery
of processed food. It is noticeable that all contracts with major food producers were renewed on 1 June 2005 and it would
appear that there were no increases in the annual value of the contracts with major food producers. This might have been
the result of a strategic decision by the management of the combined entity in order to secure the future of this part of the
business which had been built up previously by the management of Celer Transport.
Each vehicle owned by Quicklink Ltd and Celer Transport is in use for 340 days during each year, which based on a
365 day year would give an in use % of 93%. This appears acceptable given the need for routine maintenance and repairs
due to wear and tear.
During the year ended 31 May 2005 the number of on-time deliveries of mail and parcel and industrial machinery deliveries
were 99·5% and 100% respectively. This compares with ratios of 82% and 97% in respect of mail and parcel and processed
food deliveries made by Celer Transport. In this critical area it is worth noting that Quicklink Ltd achieved their higher on-time
delivery target of 99% in respect of each activity whereas Celer Transport were unable to do so. Moreover, it is worth noting
that Celer Transport missed their target time for delivery of food products on 975 occasions throughout the year 31 May 2005
and this might well cause a high level of customer dissatisfaction and even result in lost business.
It is interesting to note that whilst the businesses operate in the same industry they have a rather different delivery mix in
terms of same day/next day demands by clients. Same day deliveries only comprise 20% of the business of Quicklink Ltd
whereas they comprise 75% of the business of Celer Transport. This may explain why the delivery performance of Celer
Transport with regard to mail and parcel deliveries was not as good as that of Quicklink Ltd.
The fact that 120 items of mail and 25 parcels were lost by the Celer Transport business is most disturbing and could prove
damaging as the safe delivery of such items is the very substance of the business and would almost certainly have resulted
in a loss of customer goodwill. This is an issue which must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
The introduction of the call management system by Quicklink Ltd on 1 June 2004 is now proving its worth with 99% of calls
answered within the target time of 20 seconds. This compares favourably with the Celer Transport business in which only
90% of a much smaller volume of calls were answered within a longer target time of 30 seconds. Future performance in this
area will improve if the call management system is applied to the Celer Transport business. In particular, it is likely that the
number of abandoned calls will be reduced and enhance the ‘image’ of the Celer Transport business.

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.