Institute on Accounting
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY-SECOND Institute on Accounting Held at TH E OHIO UNION TH E OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS MAY 19 AND 20, i960 Sponsored by TH E DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND ADMINISTRATION TH E OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY Edited by TH E BUREAU OF BUSINESS RESEARCH COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND ADMINISTRATION CONTENTS Page FIRST SESSION Presiding 3 FRANK L. ARNOLD Paper: "Accounting Research for Better Financial Reporting" 5 CARMAN G. BLOUGH Paper: "Changes in Auditing Procedures in an Expanding Economy" 16 JOHN PEOPLES Paper: "Accountant's Responsibility for Disclosure of Irregularities" RALPH JONES (Not Recorded) SECOND SESSION Presiding 29 ROBERT A. DRAPER Presentation of the Ohio Society of CPA Awards 32 THIR D SESSION Presiding 37 LESLIE I. ASHER Paper: "Controllership Education". 39 HANS C. TODT Paper: "Distinguishing Good from Not-So-Good Accounting Research" 65 ROBERT N. ANTHONY Paper: "Improvements in Control of Defense Resources" 76 LAURENCE W. ACKER FOURTH SESSION Presiding 87 DEAN JAMES R. Me COY Greetings 88 GORDON B. CARSON Paper: "The World's Biggest Balance Sheet" 90 MAURICE H. STANS Presentation of the distinguished accountant elected to The Accounting Hall of Fame 97 IV ACCOUNTING INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS Page FIFTH SESSION Presiding 101 CHARLES J. GAA Paper: "The Effect of Tax Accounting Rules on the Continued Development of Sound Accounting Rules and Principles". 103 WALLACE M. JENSEN Paper: "The 1960's—Decade for Depreciation Decisions". 113 FRANK V. OLDS Paper: "Responsibility of the CPA in Tax Practice" 123 ALBERT H. COHEN SIXTH SESSION Presiding 139 E. H. EATON Presentation of Hermann C. Miller Memorial Scholarship 140 Paper: "Adapting Corporate Policies to Changing Economic Conditions" 144 JOHN HART Conference Roster 153 Available Proceedings 163 FIRST SESSION THURSDAY, MA Y 19, 10:00 A. M. The Ohio Union—West Ballroom Presiding: FRANK L. ARNOLD, Vice President, The American Institute of Certified Public Accotmants; Partner, Arnold, Hawk & Cuthbertson, Dayton, Ohio Paper: "Accounting Research for Better Financial Reporting" CARMAN G. BLOUGH, Research Director, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Neza York, New York Paper: "Changes in Auditing Procedures in an Expanding Economy" JOHN PEOPLES, Partner, Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company, New York, New York Paper: "Accountant's Responsibility for Disclosure of Irregularities" RALPH JOHNS, Partner, Haskins & Sells, Chicago, Illinois (Not Recorded) FIRST SESSION PROFESSOR PAU L E. FERTIG: It is my purpose this morning only to bid you a cordial welcome to this first session of the twenty-second annual Institute on Accounting at The Ohio State University. Your Chairman for this morning's session is Frank Arnold of Arnold, Hawk and Cuthbertson in Dayton. Frank is a Past President of the Ohio Society of CPAs, has been a member of Council, and serving on a great many AICPA committees for a number of years. He is Vice President of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Mr. Arnold. CHAIRMAN FRANK L. ARNOLD: Ladies and gentlemen: Again it is my pleasure and privilege to open another great Ohio State University Institute on Accounting. From the outline of the program, this twenty- second annual Institute of Accounting appears again to be one of the superior functions for the dissemination of accounting thinking to students of accounting as well as practicing accountants. As we all know, who have been in the accounting profession for some years, we must always remain a student of accounting, using every opportunity that presents itself to broaden our accounting knowledge. It was six years ago when I opened this Accounting Institute, then as President of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants. Today I am performing this service as Vice President of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. It is therefore with extreme pleasure to me personally that I have this opportunity to open this twenty-second annual Institute. Our first speaker this morning is known to many of us as one of the leaders in the accounting profession. Ten years ago I had the opportunity of introducing him as a speaker to the Ohio Society convention in Cleve land. He made an outstanding talk to us there and on the occasions when I have heard him, he seems to improve. In my opinion, he, like the fine whiskey that comes from our neighboring state to the south, improves with age. Mr. Blough was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Manchester College, A.B. and L.L.D.; University of Wisconsin, M.A. He has done additional graduate work at Columbia, Chicago and Harvard universities. He holds C.P.A, certificates from nine states including Wisconsin. He has been a teacher of accounting and corporation finance; professor 4 ACCOUNTING INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS of accounting and head of the accounting department of the University of North Dakota; head of the social science department of Armour Insti tute of Technology; served as associate guest professor and adjunct pro fessor of Columbia University. His services during World War I I were as Chief of the Contract Review Branch and Director of the Procurement Policy Division of the War Production Board, and as that Board's representative on the Price Adjustment Boards of the War, Navy, and Treasury Departments, Mari time Commission, Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and War Shipping Administration. He was a member of the U. S. War Contracts Price Adjustments Board, and consultant on Renegotiation and Termination of the War Production Board. He also served with the Securities and Exchange Commission as Assistant Director of the Registration Division, following this service as S.E.C.'s first Chief Accountant. For four years our speaker was manager and partner of the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen and Company in Chicago and New York. Mr. Blough was appointed in 1944 to his present position as Director of Research of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He has been a member of the Institute since 1929 and has served on many of its important committees, including the Committtee on Accounting Procedure. He has been President of the American Accounting Association. He is the author of many technical articles and editor of a department in The Journal of Accountancy, He is the author of the book Practical AffId cations of Accounting Standards published by the American Institute in 1957. For his outstanding achievements in the accounting profession, Mr. Blough was honored with an American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Distinguished Service Award in 1953 and was named to The Ohio State University's Accounting Hall of Fame in 1954. He received the Alpha Kappa Psi Award from the American Accounting Association in 1955. In 1957 he was honored as guest speaker at the seventh International Accounting Congress in Amsterdam, The Nether lands, and at the First National Accountants Conference at Ankara, in Turkey. We now bring you Mr. Carman Blough, who will talk to us on the subject, "Accounting Research for Better Financial Reporting." Mr. Blough. ACCOUNTING RESEARCH FOR BETTER FINANCIAL REPORTING CARMAN G. BLOUGH Director of Research American Institute of Certified Public Accountants New York, New York We all recognize that new inventions are all around us, new products of many kinds are being created, new machinery and equipment are being developed to make new products and to improve on the production of old ones, and automation has become part of the everyday language of business. Atomic energy and electronic devices are adding vast new areas of business activity. By the application of electronic computers to the problems of account ing, the possibilities of recording, classifying, analyzing, and reporting have already been developed far beyond our wildest dreams of only a few years ago, and the end is still beyond our imagination. In addition to all of these technological changes have come changes in our economy—greater governmental controls, subsidies, inflation, labor influences, increased international relations, diversification, expansions, cor porate mergers and acquisitions, and a host of others. While changes are nothing new in modern industrial life, there seems to have been an acceleration of them in recent years. Accordingly, it seems obvious that accounting will have to continue to adapt itself to changes for a long time to come. While this adaptation is of concern to all accountants, it is probably of the greatest concern to the independent CPAs. It would seem natural, therefore, that they should assume the leadership in adapting financial accounting and reporting to new conditions as they arise. It is they who are most vitally interested, as accountants, in the fairness and consistency of the financial reports of many businesses. They have more opportunity to study the problems as they arise in numerous, varying circumstances than anyone else. No business executive has an opportunity to see so many examples. University teachers and gov ernment oiEcials seldom have the opportunity to get so close to the problems. It seems only natural, therefore, that the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (which I shall refer to as the Institute), as the principal spokesman for the independent CPAs, should have undertaken years ago to try to develop and improve those phases of accounting that are most important in the field of financial reporting. Progress has been 6 ACCOUNTING INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS made but much remains to do. What are the steps that should be taken? Some seem to believe that uniformity of accounting principles and procedures is what is most needed; that rules should be established in such detail that similar transactions would always be handled similarly in the accounts. Comparability is their goal. Others believe that such uni formity would be impossible but firmly believe that much more uniformity than we now have would not only be possible but highly desirable. Still others consider uniformity to be highly dangerous.