ACCA考试想提高通过率？这六大“基本原则”一定要看！

正确答案：

(b) The new business
There are two tax advantages to operating the business as a partnership.
(i) Reduction in taxable income
If the new business is operated as a company, Cindy and Arthur would both be taxed at 40% on their salaries. In
addition, employer and employee national insurance contributions would be due on ￡105 (￡5,000 – ￡4,895) in respect
of each of them.
If the new business is operated as a partnership, the partners would have no taxable trading income because the
partnership has made a loss; any salaries paid to the partners would be appropriations of the profit or loss of the
business and not employment income. They would, however, each have to pay Class 2 national insurance contributions
of ￡2·10 each per week.
(ii) Earlier relief for trading losses
If the new business is operated as a company, its tax adjusted trading loss in the year ending 31 March 2008 would
be as follows:

正确答案：

(a) James – Inheritance tax arising on death

Lifetime transfers within seven years of death

The personal representatives of James’ estate will be responsible for paying the inheritance tax of ￡348,000.

Working – Available nil rate band

(b) Skipping a generation avoids a further charge to inheritance tax when the children die. Gifts will then only be taxed once before being inherited by the grandchildren, rather than twice.

(c) (1) Even if the donor does not survive for seven years, taper relief will reduce the amount of IHT payable after three years.

(2) The value of potentially exempt transfers and chargeable lifetime transfers are fixed at the time they are made.

(3) James therefore saved inheritance tax of ￡20,000 ((310,000 – 260,000) at 40%) by making the lifetime gift of property.

正确答案：
(b) In many ways Six Sigma started out as a quality control methodology. It focused on measurement and the minimisation of
faults through pursuing Six Sigma as a statistical measure of some aspects of organisational performance. However, Six Sigma
has developed into something much more than a process control technique. It includes a problem-solving process called
DMAIC and a comprehensive toolkit ranging from brainstorming to balanced scorecards and process dashboards. It also has
defined team roles for managers and employees, often with martial arts names such as Black Belt, Green Belt and Master
Black Belt.
Six Sigma was first used in organisations in the early 1990s. However, it was its adoption and promotion by Jack Welch, the
CEO of GE that brought Six Sigma wider publicity. He announced that ‘Six Sigma is the most important initiative GE has ever
undertaken’. As Paul Harmon comments, ‘Welch’s popularity with the business press, and his dynamic style, guaranteed that
Six Sigma would become one of the hot management techniques of the late 1990s’.
Six Sigma uses an approach called DMAIC in its problem solving process. This stands for Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve
and Control. Three aspects of this are considered below in the context of how they would address the problems at UPC.
Defining the problem
Part of defining the problem is the identification of the customer. It is important to understand what customers really want
and value and one of the main themes of Six Sigma is its focus on the customer. Six Sigma explicitly recognises the ‘voice of
the customer’ (VOC) in its approach. In the UPC situation quality requirements are currently defined by the physical condition
of the goods and by the alignment of the image. However, this may be a limiting view of quality because there is no evidence

of any systematic investigation of the requirements of the customer. Solving these problems may not lead to any significant
long-term gain; they may be quickly replaced by other ‘quality issues’. Furthermore, the customer is also perceived in a limited
way. These quality requirements are in the eye of the gift shop owner who is interested in saleable products. The end customer
– the consumer – who buys and uses the product may have other requirements which can also be addressed at this time.
By considering the VOC the problem and scope of the project becomes re-defined and the solution of the problems potentially
more valuable.
Measurement
Measurement is fundamental to Six Sigma. This includes the gathering of data to validate and quantify the problem. The
creation of the inspection team was based on initial evidence about an increase in breakages. This needs to be quantified.
The inaccurate printing of the image had been quantified as 500 units per month, out of the 250,000 shipped out of the
company. This equates to a failure rate of 0·2%, so that 99·8% of items are shipped with a correctly aligned image. This
sounds quite reasonable but it still raises issues and complaints that have to be dealt with, as well as creating wastage costs
of $10,000 per month. The problem is that even a relatively low percentage of defects can lead to a lot of unhappy customers.
Aiming for Six Sigma would reduce defects down to about one faulty item per month, reducing the wastage cost to $20.
Analysis
Analysis is concerned with understanding the process to find the root cause. Six Sigma focuses on processes and their
analysis. Analysis concerns methods, machines, materials, measures, Mother Nature and people. The alignment problem
needs investigation to find out what causes the imaging machine to irregularly produce misaligned images. Management
currently appear to blame the machine but it may be due to the way that certain people load the machine. The analysis of
the breakages is particularly important. It is unclear at present where these breakages occur (for example, are some of the
items broken before they leave UPC’s despatch facility) or are they all broken in transit? Neither is it understood why the
breakages occur. Management appear to blame the packers for packing incorrectly and not following the correct method.
However, it may be that the material is just not strong enough to withstand heavy handling by couriers who are outside the
control of UPC. Additionally, the breakages may be due to some manufacturing problem or raw material imperfection in the
items that break. Six Sigma stresses understanding the problem before solving it.
Although DMAIC has been selected as the framework for the sample answer, focusing on other aspects of Six Sigma would
be acceptable – as long as they are presented in the context of the UPC scenario.