Reviews the book "Federal Income Tax Accounting," by Stewart Y. McMuller.

The article focuses on the progression of accountancy in England. The English accountant is called upon to maintain during his professional career two sets of relationships. First, are those relationships, which are concerned with the accountant's immediate client with whom he comes in direct contact and by whom the accountant is hired. Such relationships are based upon contract and must consider the statutory provisions, which exist in reference to the audit. Second, there are intangible relationships, which involve indirect clients, those individuals whose presence is not disclosed to the auditor when he is preparing his statements and reports but of whose identity, at least as members of a class, he is aware. Direct clients include sole traders, partnerships and limited companies as well as all types of organizations, which according to English Law must submit their accounts to independent examination by auditors. Indirect clients encompass a much wider range of individuals, as they will include readers of financial statements and reports, potential investors, bankers, creditors, the public and the Government.

Reviews the book "New York Laws Affecting Business Corporations, Annotated," 21st ed., by J.B.R. Smith.

A number of papers in the March 1940 issue of the journal The Accounting Review, dealing with Federal accounting and auditing, have been prepared by persons familiar with practices now being followed and are both descriptive and critical in character. These papers will furnish a background for accountants who desire to know something about Federal accounting procedures, and it is hoped that they may in some degree crystallize the broad criticisms which have frequently been leveled at theories of Federal fiscal responsibility: many of which have been inherited from the days of intellectual Alexander Hamilton. The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 placed the responsibility for the accounting systems of the government in the hands of a Comptroller General who as head of the United States General Accounting Office was made independent of current administrations. But the U.S. Congress neglected to provide adequate machinery to control the activities of the Comptroller. Under existing law, it may be worth noting that the person accountable for expenditures of Federal departments is not even the administrator but the lowly "disbursing officer," an employee of the administrator charged with the duty of paying obligations incurred by others.

The Official and Unofficial Markets for Sterling Get access S. E. Harris S. E. Harris Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 54, Issue 4_Part_1, August 1940, Pages 655–664, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/54.4_Part_1.655 Published: 01 August 1940