Reviews the book "Government Budgeting," by Jesse Burkhead.

The article critically examines the extent to which significantly unique results are obtained when differing concepts of the corporation are made the basis for the analyses of transactions involving changes in the accounts relating to the interests of corporate security holders. In order to limit this presentation, only three such transactions will be considered in this article. Those selected are transactions involving interest charges, income taxes and dividends, transactions which are sometimes held to affect the measurement of income and sometimes treated as distributions of income. There has been considerable controversy in the accounting literature with respect to the nature of these items and their analysis should therefore constitute an acceptable test of the significance of the underlying corporate concept and the validity of the approach here employed. Four concepts of the corporation will be utilized. The first two underlies the proprietary and entity theories of accounting, respectively, as those theories are generally propounded. The third concept is the notion underlying the enterprise theory of accounting. And the fourth concept seems to be the one most frequently reflected in current accounting practice.

Reviews the book "Appraisal and Management of Securities," by Douglas A. Hayes.

Reviews the book "Financial and Cost Accounting for Management," by A.H. Taylor and H. Shearing.

The following problems were prepared by the Board of Examiners of the American Institute of Accountants and were presented as the first half of the examination in accounting practice on November 7, 1956. Saner, Mansville & Johnson, Certified Public Accountants, 1010 Fidelity Building, Richmond, Virginia, file theft Federal partnership return of income on the cash basis and use an August 31 fiscal year. Listed below are balances taken from the firm's general ledger (which is maintained on the accrual basis) as of September 1, 1955, and August 31, 1956. Mr. Doe, a real estate operator, owns several office buildings and wishes to diversify his holdings. He has an office building which he constructed in 1946 which has appreciated substantially in value. He has received an offer from Mr. Roe to exchange his equity in two apartment buildings for Doe's equity in the office building. In June 1955 the Hot & Cold Co. sold 50 air conditioning units for $200 each. Costs included material costs of $50 a unit and direct labor costs of $30 a unit. Overhead was computed at 100% of direct labor cost. Interest expense on a 4% bank loan was equivalent to $1.00 a unit. Federal income tax at a 30% rate was equivalent to $15 a unit.

Reviews the book "Cost Accounting," 2nd ed., by Adolph Matz, Othel J. Curry and George W. Frank.

The rising stature of the professional financial analyst, the increasing influx of institutional investors into stock holdings, and the chance for companies to enhance the attractiveness of their stock through ample disclosure have introduced specific problems which warrant consideration. Accountants have current expanded responsibilities and opportunities in the area of disclosure. There are very positive reasons why ample disclosure good financial public relations is desirable. Institutional investors are becoming a larger and larger segment of the stockholder group. Furthermore, a great number of individual investors depend, directly or indirectly, upon professional security analysts for investment advice. Analysts are major consumers of financial information. As investors or advisers to investors, they are entitled to adequate disclosure of corporate information in order that they might be better able to make intelligent decisions. More thought should be given to the undesirable practice of releasing corporate information to a favored few.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of the ordinary stock dividend, common shares issued to common stockholders, and to relate the accounting treatment of this type of transaction to the entity theory of corporate accounting. Whether or not entity theory, proprietary theory, fund theory or some combination of theories provides the most useful and meaningful frame of reference for accounting practice, which is a fundamental issue that deserves discussion. Such a discussion is beyond the boundaries of this paper. The issue is circumvented by the assumption that the entity theory is the most useful frame of reference for the following analysis. In support of this approach, current accounting practice may be cited. Today the entity concept is generally used in accounting for corporate transactions. Thus, the underlying concept is that the corporation is an entity separate from any of the parties at interest. Therefore the accounting processes revolve about the corporation and not the stockholders or creditors.