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Two Sets Of Books
The concept of "two sets of books" refers to the practice of attempting to hide or disguise certain financial transactions from outsiders by having a set of fraudulent accounting records (or "books") for official use and another, the real set, for personal records. Keeping two sets of books has its disadvantages and advantages. The concept of having two sets of books is so that public traded companies can prepare the financial statements for the US Securities and Exchange Commission, investors and sometimes the Internal Revenue Service. That is considered an advantage because it shows investors that they are a rich company. Therefore, they can get more shareholders to buy their stocks. The disadvantage with these companies for having two sets of books is when they report one or both of the books to the Internal Revenue Service, they tend to lower their income to avoid taxes. Organisations that keep two sets of books can sometimes be caught when a tax inspector or other officia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accounting
Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "language of business", measures the results of an organization's economic activities and conveys this information to a variety of stakeholders, including investors, creditors, management, and regulators. Practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. The terms "accounting" and "financial reporting" are often used as synonyms. Accounting can be divided into several fields including financial accounting, management accounting, tax accounting and cost accounting. Financial accounting focuses on the reporting of an organization's financial information, including the preparation of financial statements, to the external users of the information, such as investors, regulators and suppliers; and management accounting focuses on the measurement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Securities And Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market manipulation. In addition to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which created it, the SEC enforces the Securities Act of 1933, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and other statutes. The SEC was created by Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (now codified as and commonly referred to as the Exchange Act or the 1934 Act). Overview The SEC has a three-part mission: to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation. To achieve its mandate, the SEC enforces the statutory requirement that public companies and other regulated companies submit quarterly and annual re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax law. It is an agency of the Department of the Treasury and led by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed to a five-year term by the President of the United States. The duties of the IRS include providing tax assistance to taxpayers; pursuing and resolving instances of erroneous or fraudulent tax filings; and overseeing various benefits programs, including the Affordable Care Act. The IRS originates from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a federal office created in 1862 to assess the nation's first income tax to fund the American Civil War. The temporary measure provided over a fifth of the Union's war expenses before being allowed to expire a decade later. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitutio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Company
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (listed company), which facilitates the trade of shares, or not (unlisted public company). In some jurisdictions, public companies over a certain size must be listed on an exchange. In most cases, public companies are ''private'' enterprises in the ''private'' sector, and "public" emphasizes their reporting and trading on the public markets. Public companies are formed within the legal systems of particular states, and therefore have associations and formal designations which are distinct and separate in the polity in which they reside. In the United States, for example, a public company is usually a type of corporation (though a corporation need not be a public company), in the United Kingdom it is usually a public limited company (plc), i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Accounting Standards Board
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is a private standard-setting body whose primary purpose is to establish and improve Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) within the United States in the public's interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) designated the FASB as the organization responsible for setting accounting standards for public companies in the US. The FASB replaced the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' (AICPA) Accounting Principles Board (APB) on July 1, 1973. The FASB is run by the nonprofit Financial Accounting Foundation. FASB accounting standards are accepted as authoritative by many organizations, including state Boards of Accountancy and the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA). Structure The FASB is based in Norwalk, Connecticut, and is led by seven full-time Board members,Spiceland, David; Sepe, James; Nelson, Mark; & Tomassini, Lawrence (2009). ''Intermediate Accounting'' (5th Edition). McGraw-Hill/Irw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internal Revenue Code
The Internal Revenue Code (IRC), formally the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, is the domestic portion of federal statutory tax law in the United States, published in various volumes of the United States Statutes at Large, and separately as Title 26 of the United States Code (USC). It is organized topically, into subtitles and sections, covering income tax in the United States, payroll taxes, estate taxes, gift taxes, and excise taxes; as well as procedure and administration. The Code's implementing federal agency is the Internal Revenue Service. Origins of tax codes in the United States Prior to 1874, U.S. statutes (whether in tax law or other subjects) were not codified. That is, the acts of Congress were not separately organized and published in separate volumes based on the subject matter (such as taxation, bankruptcy, etc.). Codifications of statutes, including tax statutes, undertaken in 1873 resulted in the Revised Statutes of the United States, approved June 22, 1874, eff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tax Evasion
Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the taxpayer's tax liability, and it includes dishonest tax reporting, declaring less income, profits or gains than the amounts actually earned, overstating deductions, using bribes against authorities in countries with high corruption rates and hiding money in secret locations. Tax evasion is an activity commonly associated with the informal economy. One measure of the extent of tax evasion (the "tax gap") is the amount of unreported income, which is the difference between the amount of income that should be reported to the tax authorities and the actual amount reported. In contrast, tax avoidance is the legal use of tax laws to reduce one's tax burden. Both tax evasion and tax avoidance can be viewed as forms of tax noncompliance, as they desc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Investors
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Types of investments include equity, debt, securities, real estate, infrastructure, currency, commodity, token, derivatives such as put and call options, futures, forwards, etc. This definition makes no distinction between the investors in the primary and secondary markets. That is, someone who provides a business with capital and someone who buys a stock are both investors. An investor who owns stock is a shareholder. Types of investors There are two types of investors: retail investors and institutional investors. Retail investor * Individual investors (including trusts on behalf of individuals, and umbrella companies formed by two or more to pool investment funds) * Angel investors (individuals and groups) * Sweat equity investor Ins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company is divided, or these shares considered together" "When a company issues shares or stocks ''especially AmE'', it makes them available for people to buy for the first time." (Especially in American English, the word "stocks" is also used to refer to shares.) A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets (after discharge of all senior claims such as secured and unsecured debt), or voting power, often dividing these up in proportion to the amount of money each stockholder has invested. Not all stock is necessarily equal, as certain classe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shareholders
A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal owner of shares of the share capital of a public or private corporation. Shareholders may be referred to as members of a corporation. A person or legal entity becomes a shareholder in a corporation when their name and other details are entered in the corporation's register of shareholders or members, and unless required by law the corporation is not required or permitted to enquire as to the beneficial ownership of the shares. A corporation generally cannot own shares of itself. The influence of a shareholder on the business is determined by the shareholding percentage owned. Shareholders of a corporation are legally separate from the corporation itself. They are generally not liable for the corporation's debts, and the shareholders' liability ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accounting Ethics
Accounting ethics is primarily a field of applied ethics and is part of business ethics and human ethics, the study of moral values and judgments as they apply to accountancy. It is an example of professional ethics. Accounting was introduced by Luca Pacioli, and later expanded by government groups, professional organizations, and independent companies. Ethics are taught in accounting courses at higher education institutions as well as by companies training accountants and auditors. Due to the wide range of accounting services and recent corporate collapses, attention has been drawn to ethical standards accepted within the accounting profession. These collapses have resulted in a widespread disregard for the reputation of the accounting profession. To combat the criticism and prevent fraudulent accounting, various accounting organizations and governments have developed regulations and remedies for improved ethics among the accounting profession. Importance of ethics The nature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creative Accounting
Creative accounting is a euphemism referring to accounting practices that may follow the letter of the rules of standard accounting practices, but deviate from the spirit of those rules with questionable accounting ethics—specifically distorting results in favor of the "preparers", or the firm that hired the accountant. They are characterized by excessive complication and the use of novel ways of characterizing income, assets, or liabilities, and the intent to influence readers towards the interpretations desired by the authors. The terms "innovative" or "aggressive" are also sometimes used. Another common synonym is "cooking the books". Creative accounting is oftentimes used in tandem with outright financial fraud (including securities fraud), and lines between the two are blurred. Creative accounting practices are known since ancient times and appear world-wide in various forms. The term as generally understood refers to systematic misrepresentation of the true income and asse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
