Abstract The article focuses on the current accounting problems in the U.S. Most of the current problems arise in the appraising of transactions reflecting new methods of doing business or matters upon which there has been a wide difference of opinion among recognized accounting authorities for many years. Thorough analysis and discussion of the new problems and reappraisal of the old controversial problems are matters of mutual interest for all of us here, as well as for the registrants and certifying accountants directly concerned. Experience seems to indicate that most registrants and their independent public accountants prefer to have the financial statements and accountants' opinion contained in the report to stockholders in substantial agreement with the report to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). There is no real difference in our requirements for disclosure of inconsistencies in accounting from those which prevailed in the accounting profession prior to the existence of the SEC.

Abstract From the outset the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been sympathetic to this point of view and has sought the advice of leading accounting authorities in teaching, public practice, and among executives of corporations investment bankers, and financial analysts in the preparation of rules, regulations, and forms necessary in the administration of the acts which authorize the Commission to prescribe the forms, items, and details of financial statements to be filed generally, uniform systems of accounts, principles to be followed by registered investment companies in maintaining their accounting records and in preparing financial statements. On individual problems, however, where experience has disclosed serious discrepancies in practice as between companies and accountants and one has felt that uniformity in procedure would benefit investors by rule or regulation of the Commission or in an opinion of the chief accountant. It is imperative, therefore, that the Commission make certain that the financial statements contained in registration statements be completely unequivocal and are not used as a proving ground for innovational presentations.

Abstract The article focuses on recommendations presented by the American Accounting Association's Committee on Concepts and Standards, regarding the use of term "reserve" in accounting. The committee recommended that the term reserve should not be employed in published financial statements of business corporations, appropriations of retained income should not be made or displayed in such a manner as to create misleading inferences, and the reserve section in corporate balance sheets should be eliminated and its elements exhibited as deduction-from-asset, or liability, or retained income amounts. In general usage, outside of accounting, a reserve is a fund of cash or other assets. In accounting the term has been used to caption a variety of balance sheet items including segregated retained income, segregated asset, asset valuation and asset amortization amounts, and liabilities. It has been recommended that the word reserve be restricted to captions describing appropriated retained income. The committee believes that the popular understanding of financial statements, and the thinking of the profession, would be promoted by abandoning the term.