你不得不看：ACCA考试的五大特点

2 Assume that today’s date is 1 July 2005.

Jan is aged 45 and single. He is of Danish domicile but has been working in the United Kingdom since 1 May 2004

and intends to remain in the UK for the medium to long term. Although Jan worked briefly in the UK in 1986, he

has forgotten how UK taxation works and needs some assistance before preparing his UK income tax return.

Jan’s salary from 1 May 2004 was ￡74,760 per annum. Jan also has a company car – a Jaguar XJ8 with a list price

of ￡42,550 including extras, and CO2 emissions of 242g/km. The car was available to him from 1 July 2004. Free

petrol is provided by the company. Jan has other taxable benefits amounting to ￡3,965.

Jan’s other 2004/05 income comprises:

￡

Dividend income from UK companies (cash received) 3,240

Interest received on an ISA account 230

Interest received on a UK bank account 740

Interest remitted from an offshore account (net of 15% withholding tax) 5,100

Income remitted from a villa in Portugal (net of 45% withholding tax) 4,598

The total interest arising on the offshore account was ￡9,000 (gross). In addition, Jan has not remitted other

Portuguese rental income arising in the year, totalling a further ￡1,500 (gross).

Jan informs you that his employer is thinking of providing him with rented accommodation while he looks for a house

to buy. The accommodation would be a two bedroom flat, valued at ￡155,000 with an annual value of ￡6,000. It

would be made available from 6 August 2005. The company will pay the rent of ￡600 per month for the first six

months. All other bills will be paid by Jan.

Jan also informs you that he has 25,000 ordinary shares in Gilet Ltd (‘Gilet’), an unquoted UK trading company. He

has held these shares since August 1986 when he bought 2,500 shares at ￡4.07 per share. In January 1994, a

bonus issue gave each shareholder nine shares for each ordinary share held. In the last week all Gilet’s shareholders

have received an offer from Jumper plc (‘Jumper’) who wishes to acquire the shares. Jumper has offered the following:

– 3 shares in Jumper (currently trading at ￡3.55 per share) for every 5 shares in Gilet, and

– 25p cash per share

Required:

(a) Calculate Jan’s 2004/05 income tax (IT) payable. (11 marks)

2 Chen Products produces four manufactured products: Products 1, 2, 3 and 4. The company’s risk committee recently

met to discuss how the company might respond to a number of problems that have arisen with Product 2. After a

number of incidents in which Product 2 had failed whilst being used by customers, Chen Products had been presented

with compensation claims from customers injured and inconvenienced by the product failure. It was decided that the

risk committee should meet to discuss the options.

When the discussion of Product 2 began, committee chairman Anne Ricardo reminded her colleagues that, apart from

the compensation claims, Product 2 was a highly profitable product.

Chen’s risk management committee comprised four non-executive directors who each had different backgrounds and

areas of expertise. None of them had direct experience of Chen’s industry or products. It was noted that it was

common for them to disagree among themselves as to how risks should be managed and that in some situations,

each member proposed a quite different strategy to manage a given risk. This was the case when they discussed

which risk management strategy to adopt with regard to Product 2.

Required:

(a) Describe the typical roles of a risk management committee. (6 marks)

(c) State any reliefs Bob could claim regarding the fall in value of his shares in Willis Ltd, and describe how the

operation of any such reliefs could reduce Bob’s taxable income. (4 marks)

Relevant retail price index figures are:

September 1990 129·3

April 1998 162·6

December 2004 189·9

1 The board of Worldwide Minerals (WM) was meeting for the last monthly meeting before the publication of the yearend

results. There were two points of discussion on the agenda. First was the discussion of the year-end results;

second was the crucial latest minerals reserves report.

WM is a large listed multinational company that deals with natural minerals that are extracted from the ground,

processed and sold to a wide range of industrial and construction companies. In order to maintain a consistent supply

of minerals into its principal markets, an essential part of WM’s business strategy is the seeking out of new sources

and the measurement of known reserves. Investment analysts have often pointed out that WM’s value rests principally

upon the accuracy of its reserve reports as these are the best indicators of future cash flows and earnings. In order to

support this key part of its strategy, WM has a large and well-funded geological survey department which, according

to the company website, contains ‘some of the world’s best geologists and minerals scientists’. In its investor relations

literature, the company claims that:

‘our experts search the earth for mineral reserves and once located, they are carefully measured so that the company

can always report on known reserves. This knowledge underpins market confidence and keeps our customers

supplied with the inventory they need. You can trust our reserve reports – our reputation depends on it!’

At the board meeting, the head of the geological survey department, Ranjana Tyler, reported that there was a problem

with the latest report because one of the major reserve figures had recently been found to be wrong. The mineral in

question, mallerite, was WM’s largest mineral in volume terms and Ranjana explained that the mallerite reserves in

a deep mine in a certain part of the world had been significantly overestimated. She explained that, based on the

interim minerals report, the stock market analysts were expecting WM to announce known mallerite reserves of

4·8 billion tonnes. The actual figure was closer to 2·4 billion tonnes. It was agreed that this difference was sufficient

to affect WM’s market value, despite the otherwise good results for the past year. Vanda Monroe, the finance director,

said that the share price reflects market confidence in future earnings. She said that an announcement of an incorrect

estimation like that for mallerite would cause a reduction in share value. More importantly for WM itself, however, it

could undermine confidence in the geological survey department. All agreed that as this was strategically important

for the company, it was a top priority to deal with this problem.

Ranjana explained how the situation had arisen. The major mallerite mine was in a country new to WM’s operations.

The WM engineer at the mine said it was difficult to deal with some local people because, according to the engineer,

‘they didn’t like to give us bad news’. The engineer explained that when the mine was found to be smaller than

originally thought, he was not told until it was too late to reduce the price paid for the mine. This was embarrassing

and it was agreed that it would affect market confidence in WM if it was made public.

The board discussed the options open to it. The chairman, who was also a qualified accountant, was Tim Blake. He

began by expressing serious concern about the overestimation and then invited the board to express views freely. Gary

Howells, the operations director, said that because disclosing the error to the market would be so damaging, it might

be best to keep it a secret and hope that new reserves can be found in the near future that will make up for the

shortfall. He said that it was unlikely that this concealment would be found out as shareholders trusted WM and they

had many years of good investor relations to draw on. Vanda Monroe, the finance director, reminded the board that

the company was bound to certain standards of truthfulness and transparency by its stock market listing. She pointed

out that they were constrained by codes of governance and ethics by the stock market and that colleagues should be

aware that WM would be in technical breach of these if the incorrect estimation was concealed from investors. Finally,

Martin Chan, the human resources director, said that the error should be disclosed to the investors because he would

not want to be deceived if he were an outside investor in the company. He argued that whatever the governance codes

said and whatever the cost in terms of reputation and market value, WM should admit its error and cope with

whatever consequences arose. The WM board contains three non-executive directors and their views were also

invited.

At the preliminary results presentation some time later, one analyst, Christina Gonzales, who had become aware of

the mallerite problem, asked about internal audit and control systems, and whether they were adequate in such a

reserve-sensitive industry. WM’s chairman, Tim Blake, said that he intended to write a letter to all investors and

analysts in the light of the mallerite problem which he hoped would address some of the issues that Miss Gonzales

had raised.

Required:

(a) Define ‘transparency’ and evaluate its importance as an underlying principle in corporate governance and in

relevant and reliable financial reporting. Your answer should refer to the case as appropriate. (10 marks)