Reviews the book "The Plant Accounting Regulations of the Federal Power Commission--A Critical Analysis," by Sidney Davidson.

This article presents a report by the retiring president of 1952 of American Accounting Association. The president said that the Association's members need to play an active role in the development of the profession, not only because they have much to contribute, but also because their own vitality is thereby increased. It is requisite that the Association's members active in the field of education be integrated into the profession and the profession's progress. No profession is satisfactorily developed without a soundly integrated educational foundation. The Association represents a vehicle through the medium of which accounting educators can express themselves, can make contributions to accounting progress, and can secure a high degree of professional integration. The Association continues to enjoy cordial relations with other professional organizations active in the accounting area. Effort was made during the past year to develop somewhat closer working relationships between the Association's committees and the committees of other professional organizations. A substantial number of new members has again been added to the Association's membership list, although associate memberships, reflecting the decrease in enrollments, continue to decline.

Fifty years ago the principal interest of those concerned with the financial data of business enterprises centered on the periodic display of assets and liabilities (balance sheet). Over the course of the last half century there is little question that a pronounced shift in the interest of the users of published corporate reports has occurred. Thus, at the present time the principal attention of investors, financial analysts, employees, and the general public is focused on the statement setting forth the periodic net income or earnings of the business, with the balance sheet being viewed".. . as the connecting link between successive income statements and as the vehicle for the distribution of charges and credits between them." This emphasis on the significance of the amount of periodic net income has resulted in a considerable amount of attention on the part of professional societies and regulatory bodies being directed toward the establishment of principles and procedures aimed at achieving a high degree of objectivity in the determination of periodic net income for the individual enterprise, with the resulting increased meaningfulness of the comparison of the operating results of two or more enterprises. It will be the purpose of this article to survey some of the accounting techniques which may be applied to affect the assignment of net income to successive accounting periods. As the title indicates, emphasis will be placed on the possibilities for smoothing or leveling the amplitude of periodic net income fluctuations.

Journal Article Ad Valorem and Unit Taxes Compared Get access D. B. Suits, D. B. Suits University of Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar R. A. Musgrave R. A. Musgrave University of Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 67, Issue 4, November 1953, Pages 598–604, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883604 Published: 01 November 1953