ACCA考试合格证书在考试通过之后多长时间可以拿到？

正确答案：
(b) The contributions payable by Savage to the trustees will not count as an asset for the purposes of the valuation of the fund.
IAS19 (paragraph 103) states that plan assets should not include unpaid contributions due from the reporting entity to the
fund. Thus in the financial statements of Savage the contributions would be shown as an amount payable to the trustees
and there may be legal repercussions if the amount is not paid within a short period of time. Following the introduction of
changes to a defined benefit plan, a company should recognise immediately past service costs where the benefit has vested.
In the case where the benefits have not vested then the past service costs will be recognised as an expense over the averageperiod until the benefits vest. The company will therefore recognise $125 million at 1 November 2004.

正确答案：
(a) Reliability and Measurement
Fair value can be defined as the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability. The fair value can
be thought of as an ‘exit price’. A fair value measurement assumes that the transaction to sell the asset or transfer the liability
occurs in the principal market for the asset or liability or, in the absence of a principal market, the most advantageous market
for the asset or liability which is the market in which the reporting entity would sell the asset or transfer the liability with the
price that maximises the amount that would be received or minimises the amount that would be paid. IAS39 ‘Financial
Instruments: Recognition and Measurement’ requires an entity to use the most advantageous active market in measuring the
fair value of a financial asset or liability when multiple markets exist whereas IAS41 ‘Agriculture’ requires an entity to use the
most relevant market. Thus there can be different approaches for estimating exit prices. Additionally valuation techniques and
current replacement cost could be used.
A hierarchy of fair value measurements would have to be developed in order to convey information about the nature of the
information used in creating the fair values. For example quoted prices (unadjusted) in active markets would provide better
quality information than quoted prices for similar assets and liabilities in active markets which would provide better quality
information than prices which reflect the reporting entity’s own thinking about the assumptions that market participants would
use in pricing the asset or liability. Enron made extensive use of what it called ‘mark-to-market’ accounting which was based
on valuation techniques and estimates. IFRSs currently do not have a single hierarchy that applies to all fair value measures.
Instead individual standards indicate preferences for certain inputs and measures of fair value over others, but this guidance
is not consistent among all IFRSs.
Some companies, in order to effectively manage their businesses, have already developed models for determining fair values.
Businesses manage their operations by managing risks. A risk management process often requires measurement of fair values
of contracts, financial instruments, and risk positions.
If markets were liquid and transparent for all assets and liabilities, fair value accounting clearly would give reliable information
which is useful in the decision making process. However, because many assets and liabilities do not have an active market,
the inputs and methods for estimating their fair value are more subjective and, therefore, the valuations are less reliable. Fair
value estimates can vary greatly, depending on the valuation inputs and methodology used. Where management uses
significant judgment in selecting market inputs when market prices are not available, reliability will continue to be an issue.
Management can use significant judgment in the valuation process. Management bias, whether intentional or unintentional,
may result in inappropriate fair value measurements and consequently misstatements of earnings and equity capital. Without
reliable fair value estimates, the potential for misstatements in financial statements prepared using fair value measurements
will be even greater.
Consideration must be given to revenue recognition issues in a fair value system. It must be ensured that unearned revenue
is not recognised early as it recently was by certain high-tech companies.
As the variety and complexity of financial instruments increases, so does the need for independent verification of fair value
estimates. However, verification of valuations that are not based on observable market prices is very challenging. Users of
financial statements will need to place greater emphasis on understanding how assets and liabilities are measured and how
reliable these valuations are when making decisions based on them.
Disclosure
Fair values reflect point estimates and do not result in transparent financial statements. Additional disclosures are necessary
to bring meaning to these fair value estimates. These disclosures might include key drivers affecting valuations, fair-valuerange
estimates, and confidence levels. Another important disclosure consideration relates to changes in fair value amounts.
For example, changes in fair values on securities can arise from movements in interest rates, foreign-currency rates, and credit
quality, as well as purchases and sales from the portfolio. For users to understand fair value estimates, they must be given
adequate disclosures about what factors caused the changes in fair value. It could be argued that the costs involved in
determining fair values may exceed the benefits derived therefrom. When considering how fair value information should be
presented in the financial statements, it is important to consider what type of financial information investors want. There are
indications that some investors desire both fair value information and historical cost information. One of the issues affecting
the credibility of fair value disclosures currently is that a number of companies include ‘health warnings’ with their disclosures
indicating that the information is not used by management. This language may contribute to users believing that the fair value
disclosures lack credibility.

正确答案：
(b) Draft guidance
(i) Gifts and hospitality
Gifts and hospitality may be offered as an inducement i.e. to unduly influence actions or decisions, encourage illegal or
dishonest behaviour or to obtain confidential information. An offer of gifts and/or hospitality from a client ordinarily gives
rise to threats to compliance with the fundamental principles, for example:
■ self-interest threats to objectivity and/or confidentiality may be created if a gift from a client is accepted;
■ intimidation threats to objectivity and/or confidentiality may arise through the possibility of such offers being made
public and damaging the reputation of the professional accountant (or close family member).
The significance of such threats will depend on the nature, value and intent behind the offer. There may be no significant
threat to compliance with the fundamental principles if a reasonable and informed third party would consider gifts and
hospitality to be clearly insignificant. For example, if the offer of gifts or hospitality is made in the normal course of
business without the specific intent to influence decision making or to obtain information.
If evaluated threats are other than clearly insignificant, safeguards should be considered and applied as necessary to
eliminate them or reduce them to an acceptable level.
Offers of gifts and hospitality should not be accepted if the threats cannot be eliminated or reduced to an acceptable
level through the application of safeguards.
As the real or apparent threats to compliance with the fundamental principles do not merely arise from acceptance of
an inducement but, sometimes, merely from the fact of the offer having been made, additional safeguards should be
adopted. For example:
■ immediately informing higher levels of management or those charged with governance that an inducement has
been offered;
■ informing third parties (e.g. a professional body) of the offer (after seeking legal advice);
■ advising immediate or close family members of relevant threats and safeguards where they are potentially in
positions that might result in offers of inducements (e.g. as a result of their employment situation); and
■ informing higher levels of management or those charged with governance where immediate or close family
members are employed by competitors or potential suppliers of that organisation.

正确答案：
(c) There are many reasons that could be discussed in support of the view that net present value (NPV) is superior to other
investment appraisal methods.
NPV considers cash flows
This is the reason why NPV is preferred to return on capital employed (ROCE), since ROCE compares average annual
accounting profit with initial or average capital invested. Financial management always prefers cash flows to accounting profit,
since profit is seen as being open to manipulation. Furthermore, only cash flows are capable of adding to the wealth of
shareholders in the form. of increased dividends. Both internal rate of return (IRR) and Payback also consider cash flows.
NPV considers the whole of an investment project
In this respect NPV is superior to Payback, which measures the time it takes for an investment project to repay the initial
capital invested. Payback therefore considers cash flows within the payback period and ignores cash flows outside of the
payback period. If Payback is used as an investment appraisal method, projects yielding high returns outside of the payback
period will be wrongly rejected. In practice, however, it is unlikely that Payback will be used alone as an investment appraisal
method.
NPV considers the time value of money
NPV and IRR are both discounted cash flow (DCF) models which consider the time value of money, whereas ROCE and
Payback do not. Although Discounted Payback can be used to appraise investment projects, this method still suffers from the
criticism that it ignores cash flows outside of the payback period. Considering the time value of money is essential, since
otherwise cash flows occurring at different times cannot be distinguished from each other in terms of value from the
perspective of the present time.
NPV is an absolute measure of return
NPV is seen as being superior to investment appraisal methods that offer a relative measure of return, such as IRR and ROCE,
and which therefore fail to reflect the amount of the initial investment or the absolute increase in corporate value. Defenders
of IRR and ROCE respond that these methods offer a measure of return that is understandable by managers and which can
be intuitively compared with economic variables such as interest rates and inflation rates.
NPV links directly to the objective of maximising shareholders’ wealth
The NPV of an investment project represents the change in total market value that will occur if the investment project is
accepted. The increase in wealth of each shareholder can therefore be measured by the increase in the value of their
shareholding as a percentage of the overall issued share capital of the company. Other investment appraisal methods do not
have this direct link with the primary financial management objective of the company.
NPV always offers the correct investment advice
With respect to mutually exclusive projects, NPV always indicates which project should be selected in order to achieve the
maximum increase on corporate value. This is not true of IRR, which offers incorrect advice at discount rates which are less
than the internal rate of return of the incremental cash flows. This problem can be overcome by using the incremental yield
approach.
NPV can accommodate changes in the discount rate
While NPV can easily accommodate changes in the discount rate, IRR simply ignores them, since the calculated internal rate
of return is independent of the cost of capital in all time periods.
NPV has a sensible re-investment assumption
NPV assumes that intermediate cash flows are re-invested at the company’s cost of capital, which is a reasonable assumption
as the company’s cost of capital represents the average opportunity cost of the company’s providers of finance, i.e. it
represents a rate of return which exists in the real world. By contrast, IRR assumes that intermediate cash flows are reinvested
at the internal rate of return, which is not an investment rate available in practice,
NPV can accommodate non-conventional cash flows
Non-conventional cash flows exist when negative cash flows arise during the life of the project. For each change in sign there
is potentially one additional internal rate of return. With non-conventional cash flows, therefore, IRR can suffer from the
technical problem of giving multiple internal rates of return.