了解一下：ACCA考试难度怎么样，你知道吗？

正确答案：
(a) Evidence of trading
[Client address]
[Own address]
[Date]
Dear Bob,
I note that you have been selling some books in order to raise some extra income. While you believe that the sums are not
taxable, I believe that there may be a risk of the book sales being treated as a trade, and therefore taxable under Schedule D
Case I. We need to refer to guidance in the form. of a set of principles known as the ‘badges of trade’. These help determine
whether or not a trade exists, and need to be looked at in their entirety. The badges are as follows.
1. The subject matter
Some assets can be enjoyed by themselves as an investment, while others (such as large amounts of aircraft linen) are
clearly not. It is likely that such assets are acquired as trading stock, and are therefore a sign of trading. Sporting books
can be an investment, and so this test is not conclusive.
2. Frequency of transactions
Where transactions are frequent (not one-offs), this suggests trading. You have sold several books, which might suggest
trading, although you have only done this for a short period - between one and two years.
3. Length of ownership
Where items are bought and sold soon afterwards, this indicates trading. You bought your books in the 1990s, and the
length of time between acquisition and sale would not suggest trading.
4. Supplementary work and marketing
You are actively marketing the books on your internet website, which is an indication of trading.
5. Profit motive
A motive to make profit suggests trading activity. You sold the books to raise funds for your property business, and not
to make a profit as such, which suggests that your motive was to raise cash, and not make profits.
6. The way in which the asset sold was acquired.
Selling assets which were acquired unintentionally (such as a gift) is not usually seen as trading. You acquired the books
for your collection over a period of time, and while these were intentional acquisitions, the reasons for doing so were for
your personal pleasure.
By applying all of these tests, it should be possible to argue that you were not trading, merely selling some assets in
order to generate short-term cash for your business.
The asset disposals will be taxed under the capital gain tax rules, but as the books are chattels and do not form. part of
a set, they will be exempt from capital gains tax.
Yours sincerely
A N. Accountant

正确答案：
(b) Negotiated transfer prices suffer from the following limitations:
– The transfer price which is the final outcome of negotiations may not be close to the transfer price that would be optimal
for the organisation as a whole since it can be dependent on the negotiating skills and bargaining powers of individual
managers.
– They can lead to conflict between divisions which may necessitate the intervention of top management to mediate.
– The measure of divisional profitability can be dependent on the negotiating skills of managers who may have unequal
bargaining power.
– They can be time-consuming for the managers involved, particularly where large numbers of transactions are involved.

正确答案：
(a) To: Board of directors
From: Management Accountant
Date: 8 June 2007
The potential benefits of the adoption of a balanced scorecard approach to performance measurement within GER are as
follows:
A broader business perspective
Financial measures invariably have an inward-looking perspective. The balanced scorecard is wider in its scope and
application. It has an external focus and looks at comparisons with competitors in order to establish what constitutes best
practice and ensures that required changes are made in order to achieve it. The use of the balanced scorecard requires a
balance of both financial and non-financial measures and goals.
A greater strategic focus
The use of the balanced scorecard focuses to a much greater extent on the longer term. There is a far greater emphasis on
strategic considerations. It attempts to identify the needs and wants of customers and the new products and markets. Hence
it requires a balance between short term and long term performance measures.
A greater focus on qualitative aspects
The use of the balanced scorecard attempts to overcome the over-emphasis of traditional measures on the quantifiable aspects
of the internal operations of an organisation expressed in purely financial terms. Its use requires a balance between
quantitative and qualitative performance measures. For example, customer satisfaction is a qualitative performance measure
which is given prominence under the balanced scorecard approach.
A greater focus on longer term performance
The use of traditional financial measures is often dominated by financial accounting requirements, for example, the need to
show fixed assets at their historic cost. Also, they are primarily focused on short-term profitability and return on capital
employed in order to gain stakeholder approval of short term financial reports, the longer term or whole life cycle often being
ignored.
The limitations of a balanced scorecard approach to performance measurement may be viewed as follows:
The balanced scorecard attempts to identify the chain of cause and effect relationships which will provide the stimulus for
the future success of an organisation.
Advocates of a balanced scorecard approach to performance measurement suggest that it can constitute a vital component
of the strategic management process.
However, Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the authors of the balanced scorecard concept concede that it may not be suitable
for all firms. Norton suggests that it is most suitable for firms which have a long lead time between management action and
financial benefit and that it will be less suitable for firms with a short-term focus. However, other flaws can be detected in
the balanced scorecard.
The balanced scorecard promises to outline the theory of the firm by clearly linking the driver/outcome measures in a cause
and effect chain, but this will be difficult if not impossible to achieve.
The precise cause and effect relationships between measures for each of the perspectives on the balanced scorecard will be
complex because the driver and outcome measures for the various perspectives are interlinked. For example, customer
satisfaction may be seen to be a function of several drivers, such as employee satisfaction, manufacturing cycle time and
quality. However, employee satisfaction may in turn be partially driven by customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction
may partially drive manufacturing cycle time. A consequence of this non-linearity of the cause and effect chain (i.e., there is
non-linear relationship between an individual driver and a single outcome measure), is that there must be a question mark
as to the accuracy of any calculated correlations between driver and outcome measures. Allied to this point, any calculated
correlations will be historic. This implies that it will only be possible to determine the accuracy of cause and effect linkages
after the event, which could make the use of the balanced scorecard in dynamic industries questionable. If the market is
undergoing rapid evolution, for example, how meaningful are current measures of customer satisfaction or market share?
These criticisms do not necessarily undermine the usefulness of the balanced scorecard in presenting a more comprehensive
picture of organisational performance but they do raise doubts concerning claims that a balanced scorecard can be
constructed which will outline a clear cause and effect chain between driver and outcome measures and the firm’s financial
objectives.