A Wall Street Journal article noted that Apple reported higher income than its competitors by using a more aggressive policy for recognizing revenue on future upgrades to its products. Some contend that Apple’s quality of earnings is low. What does the term “quality of earnings” mean?

Short Answer

Expert verified

Quality of earnings means the reporting of credibility of the earnings in number.

Step by step solution

01

Meaning of Earnings

Income is the principal determinant shown in a company’s financial statements to represent the company’s profitability for a specific period. In addition, a company’s earnings help calculate several financial ratios.

02

Explanation of quality of earnings

Quality of earnings means the number reported in the financial statements must be reliable and accurately presented. Companies using aggressive policies will report higher income numbers for the short run. In this case, the quality of earnings will be less.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

How should the disposal of a component of a business be disclosed in the income statement?

Discuss the appropriate treatment in the financial statements of each of the following.

(a) Gain on sale of investment securities.

(b) A profit-sharing bonus to employees computed as a percentage of net income.

(c) Additional depreciation on factory machinery because of an error in computing depreciation for the previous year.

(d) Rent received from subletting a portion of the office space.

(e) A patent infringement suit, brought 2 years ago against the company by another company, was settled this year by a cash payment of $725,000.

(f) A reduction in the Allowance for Doubtful Accounts balance because the account appears to be considerably in excess of the probable loss from uncollectible receivables.

What is the basis for distinguishing between operating and non operating items?

(Income Statement, EPS) Presented below are selected ledger accounts of Tucker Corporation as of December 31, 2017.

Cash $50,000

Administrative expenses 100,000

Selling expenses 80,000

Net sales 540,000

Cost of goods sold 210,000

Cash dividends declared (2017) 20,000

Cash dividends paid (2017) 15,000

Discontinued operations (loss before income taxes) 40,000

Depreciation expense, not recorded in 2016 30,000

Retained earnings, December 31, 2016 90,000

Effective tax rate 30%

Instructions

  1. Compute net income for 2017.
  2. Prepare a partial income statement beginning with income from continuing operations before income tax, and including appropriate earnings per share information. Assume 10,000 shares of common stock were outstanding during 2017.

Which statement is correct regarding IFRS?

  1. An advantage of the nature-of-expense method is that it is simple to apply because allocations of expense to different functions are not necessary.
  2. The function-of-expense approach never requires arbitrary allocations.
  3. An advantage of the function-of-expense method is that the allocation of costs to the varying functions is rarely arbitrary.
  4. IFRS requires the use of the nature-of-expense approach.
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