Memorandum
To: Professor
From: XXX
Date: December 14, 2011
Subject: Income tax treatment
I appreciate that you choose me to deal with the questions for you, these are really good questions which we should pay attention to. In this memo, I would answer your questions about the specific treatment of your company’s income taxes according to my research in FASB Accounting Standard Codification and other sources.
First, you ask about if the income taxes should be considered as an expense for financial reporting purpose. According to my research, I found that most accountants now agree that corporate income tax is an expense. Treating income tax as an expense is required under GAAP. This treatment is consistent with proprietary theory because the earnings that accrue to owners are reduced by corporate obligations to the government. Also, because the income tax does not result from transactions with owners, expensing corporate income tax is consistent with the SFAC No. 6 definition of comprehensive income. Thus, on the surface, accounting for income taxes would appear to be a nonissue. So for your company’s financial reporting, you should treat income taxes as an expense.
Your second question is about the difference between intraperiod and interperiod tax allocation and how to differ these two, as well as the effect on financial reporting of these two methods. This is really a good question, because new start-up company would always be confused at this part. Intraperiod tax allocation method that allocates total income tax expense or benefit of an entity for a period to different components of comprehensive income and shareholders' equity. This includes allocating income tax expense or benefit for the year to: Continuing operations, discontinued operations, extraordinary items, other comprehensive income, and Items charged or credited directly to shareholders'