Financial incontinence
Yes you have read the title correctly. It’s a new expression to me, but I do like what it describes. I first read it in an article by David McWilliams in the Irish Times. Rather than me define it, read the article here for yourself. While the article refers to costs of government, it could apply to any organisation I guess.
Taxes on unhealthy food products
I recall many years ago when I was studying for my accounting exams. One of the things we learned about Irish valued added tax (VAT) is that the rate of zero tended to apply to basic foods – milk, bread, for example – with higher rates generally applying to more “luxury” items.
Having had a recent article in the Guardian, it made me think about whether VAT would be a good way to increase taxes on unhealthy foods like sugar – unhealthy in that there tends to be too much in certain processed foods. It seems logical and sensible, and in the article, even a large food company is asking for such change. It is also quite efficient as the VAT system is well established in most European countries, so no need to create a new system to administer a new tax.
Rural electrification in Ireland – new book
A slightly personal post.
I am from a small village in Dublin, whose claim to fame is that it was the first rural area to receive electricity back in 1947. It may be hard for us to imagine the effect this had on rural life, but it was a life changing event, a revolution.
That was 75 years ago. As part of Oldtown’s marking of this anniversary I had the honour of writing a short book about events around the arrival of power to my village. A key reason for writing the book was to ensure that knowledge is not lost, and to put some focus on Oldtown as the first step in this revolution which changed rural Ireland.
The book can be purchased in Kindle version here – Power to Rural No.1: The story of Oldtown, the first Irish village to be electrified under the Rural Electrification Scheme . A paperback copy is also available, you can complete this form. All proceeds/royalties from the book are donated to this charitable cause.
Free school transport?
Back in 1985 I took my first trip on a school bus to my new secondary school. At that time, school transport was free, and Ireland’s economy was not in great shape. The buses were honestly heaps of scrap, often breaking down, and very over-crowded. Then, at some stage before 1990, we had to pay for a ticket each term. I finished school, but could see school transport got better. Over time too the Irish economy got better. Until recently ticket price for school transport was about €350 per term.
In July, the Irish government announced school transport would again be free – see here. The scrapping of ticket charges was I guess an effort by the Irish government to help families with spiralling costs of living. While this is laudable, it must be remembered that nothing is free. The school transport scheme costs about €300 million per annum so this money must be found somewhere, likely from reductions in some other areas of spending.
Based on my own experience, what worries me most is we may go back to try 1980s. This was not a good time, buses were bad as I said, but the overcrowding was worst of all. Once a ticket charge was introduced, the numbers on my bus fell. It will be interesting to see if investment in school transport will be maintained, only time will tell. To me this blunt instrument of scrapping the charge is not ideal, and there have always been processes where free tickets were issued to families who could not afford them.
Tesla and bitcoin on the balance sheet
Not many large firms hold bitcoin as an asset, but Tesla is one of them. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal highlights how bitcoin is accounted for by Tesla.
According to the article, Tesla holds about $1.5 billion in bitcoin. This, like any currency holdings, is an asset on the company balance sheet. If you have read any media reports of late you may know that bitcoin hit some historic highs recently, but it’s value is volatile. From a balance sheet perspective, as an asset it must be tested for impairment at least annually and any gains or losses are reported immediately against earnings/profit. The WSJ article suggests some positive results reported by Tesla in recent times are a result of selling some bitcoin holdings – alongside sales of some other credits it holds.
As most companies do not yet sell products for bitcoin or other crypto currency, we do not get to see how volatility effects balance sheets. I am not sure it would be a good thing to have balance sheets subjected to such fluctuations, as is the case in some hyperinflationary economies with devaluing currency.
Digitalisation of payroll taxes and Covid 19
It’s not very often I delve into the subject of taxation. I guess that’s because like everyone, it’s not something I like paying, but I have to 😀.
In recent weeks in Ireland, there has been some debate in the media about emergency payments made by our government to people who were made unemployed temporarily as a result of Covid 19. Our government took a quick and broad decision to pay everyone affected €350 per week until they returned to work.
Some anomalies arose – for example part time workers got more cash for not working. This was inevitable given the quick nature of the decision, but quick decisions are needed in a crisis
So should the Irish government be worried about cash being misspent on this? Simply, no. Why you may ask? Well, Ireland’s Revenue Commissioners are really good at digitalisation. Since January 2019 for example, all payroll data gets sent to them (as the state’s tax authority) at the end of each month. They thus have gross pay, taxes deducted and net pay for every employee in the country. This, in time, could be easily contrasted with the emergency €350 paid to see if some were paid too much. This would not be possible at all without digitalised payroll tax records. I am a big fan of digitalisation of our tax affairs despite not liking paying it😄.
A quick lesson on blockchain for accountants: Part 1 – currency
I have been meaning to write something on blockchain for quite a while now. So, in this post and the next few, I will write what I hope are some simple lessons which will give you an appreciation of blockchain. To do this, I want to go back to some basics first and here I will remind you what a currency is. For these posts, I will use the example of a blockchain being used in cryptocurrencies, but there may be many other uses as time goes on.
So what is a currency? We probably all think we know what it is, it is the money in our pockets. That is a fair starting point, but we need to big a little deeper. In accounting – see for example the IASB’s Conceptual framework – there are several measurement bases: current cost, historic cost, present value, realisable value. The conceptual framework of the IASB defines measurement “as the process of determining the monetary amounts at which the elements of the financial statements are to be recognised and carried in the balance sheet and income statement”. Monetary means in money, and money can be defined as a current medium of exchange – hence the word currency. So, for accounting, this means we measure assets, liabilities, incomes and expenses in currency – a dollar, a euro, a pound. So why not in bitcoin, or litecoin or ethereum? Are these not currencies?
To answer these questions, let me divulge for a moment. When I was in secondary school, I studied “Business Studies”. From this, I remember something which used to be printed on all the Irish pound notes before we had the Euro, the term legal tender. I also recalled that all pound notes were legal tender, and a certain amount of coinage. Legal tender means that the currency is acceptable as a means of settling a debt. In Irish law, before the introduction of the Euro, a 1969 law set out that all notes and some coinage were legal tender e.g. a debt of £20 could be paid in coins of 10 pence or greater. The concept still applies to the Euro notes, and in other currencies too. However, being legal tender only means something is an acceptable means of payment, it does not have to be accepted in general. Thus, cheques, credit cards, PayPal, ApplePay, and guess what you got it, cryptocurrencies, do not have to be accepted as a form of payment. Having said that, typically banknotes are issued by a country’s central bank and are nearly always accepted.
So, if something is not legal tender, then there is a chance they may not be accepted as a method of payment (i.e. settlement of a debt). At this stage you are thinking, but if credit cards etc are not legal tender why are they so widely accepted? The answer lies in the fact that the banks who issue the cards and process payments are doing so typically in a currency recognised as legal tender.
Let me pose a question now. If you went to a typical shop in a town or city, and you had some cryptocurrency, maybe bitcoin, in an electronic wallet would you be able to pay for a coffee? The answer is generally no, but there are some online and other retailers who will accept payment in bitcoin. So it is probably fair to say that as bitcoin is not generally accepted (yet), it is not a currency. And, as far as I am aware, no cryptocurrency is yet legal tender. For accountants, this means that we are not yet measuring in cryptocurrency, and no accounting reports will be prepared in bitcoin for example. Thus in accounting terms, any cryptocurrency a business may have is treated as an asset in the financial statements – typically a current asset, like a normal bank or cash account. Of course, cryptocurrency values seem to be rather unstable, but this is not something I cover here.
Now that you know what a currency is, Part 2 of this series of posts will explore how bitcoin payments are processed.
Marginal costs of a coffee?
Image from wikipedia
A colleague pointed to an article on The Guardian Food and Drink blog recently which posed a question “Is £2 a fair price for a cup of hot water and lemon”. The article describes a review of a coffee shop on TripAdvisor where a customer complained about the price. The manager duly drafted a long and detailed reply, justifying the cost. The justification included everything from the staff member cutting a slice of the lemon, walking in and out of the kitchen and so on – you can read it all at the above link. He argued the cost might be even more than £2.
So what is my view? The manager is right if you include all costs (i.e. full costing). But here is another way to think about this. The waiter, chef, light, rent, cups, equipment, decor etc have all been paid for and are sunk costs. Thinking about it this way, the extra cost of the coffee/tea/water & lemon or whatever else is simply the water and ingredients. Thus, a cup could be sold for a few cent and still make a profit on that one cup as long as the costs are covered. Of course to do this all the time would probably not make business sense, but sometimes if a business has already covered all its costs (or wants to minimise losses) it can engage in such marginal cost thinking – take GroupOn vouchers as an example. Such thinking about pricing and costs is not of course supported by financial reporting, which encourages us to think only in full cost terms. But going back to our coffee shop, if a waiter costs €/$/£10 per hour to employ, then this cost will not change regardless of whether (s)he serves 1 cup or 20 cups in an hour. Lowering prices might bring more people in, and they might buy more than just a cup of coffee – but to do this the manager needs to be aware of the nature of costs and make an informed decision.
The costs of sitting in traffic?
We all know what it is like to sit in traffic, but ever wondering how much money is wasted through lost time? An article from The Economist gives a good picture. Some research conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research and INRIX looked at costs of traffic jams in three ways – 1) reduced productivity, 2) higher transport costs and 3) carbon costs of fumes. Their cost estimates across four countries comes to some $200 billion. Quite a sum I think you will agree. I wonder how much of this cost relates to lost labour time – or in other words what is the opportunity cost to firms of having staff delayed in traffic. Of course, you could think of this from the view of the worker too – the opportunity cost might be at least some extra time in bed instead of the morning rush hour.
Flat rate taxi fares, Hailo – reducing taxi costs?
I recently got a flat rate taxi fare from an airport in Europe – a bit of an adventure, the guy was really moving it. And the rate was of course cheaper than normal taxi fare which at airports are usually more expensive . So then I started to think about apps like Hailo (and the latest one Uber). Can these reduce taxi costs and in turn give us cheaper fares. Well I guess so. I don’t know for sure, but I would assume using Hailo is cheaper than “renting” a radio and a customer base from a taxi firm. If I’m right, will these reduced costs be passed on?
An interesting view on assets and income…
Here is a good post from worthytoshare.com which looks at a lady seeking a partner from an interesting view. It is worth a read, trust me
The Science May Be Settled, But the Economics Isn’t
A re-blog this week. This is a great post from the Freakonomics blog on the climate change debate – or fact perhaps more correctly. It makes interesting reading.
The Science May Be Settled, But the Economics Isn’t.
Related articles
Management accountant’s travelogue – part 3 – to toll or not to toll?
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As I drove through France and Spain on my holiday, I thought about the tolls one must pay (on most) motorways. I was thinking how do they set the prices of these tolls? Of course, public infrastructure like motorways is often now financed by a combination of public and private investment. Regardless of the investment type, can you imagine how tricky it is to pitch a price for a motorway toll. If it’s too high, less will use it (M6 Toll in the UK) and costs take much longer to be recouped. Set it too cheap and it floods with traffic, which in turn eventually results in less users, and that equals less money. Should the price be set with future investment and on-going maintenance in mind. Should it be a social good with a very low price – but then where will the money come from for re-investment? Lots of questions here, but I hope you can see a lot of management accounting is behind these decisions. I would imagine getting the initial price correct is the toughest part. Nowadays though, I am sure there are plenty of modelling tools to help toll operators and governments.
Management accountant’s travelogue- part 2 – merendero
While in Northern Spain – Asturias to be exact – we were invited one evening to a meal at a merendero. From my limited knowledge of Spanish, this translates loosely to a picnic area. What we in fact had was a lovely tapas evening in a restaurant with a merendero attached. I have written before about business being child-friendly, or not as is often the case. The merendero concept is so simple; a lot of picnic tables, some play areas/equipment, a simple ordering system where you collect you food. And, all this at minimum cost to the restaurant I would imagine – at least in fixed costs. On the revenue side, the turnover of the restaurant is probably increased quite a bit as 1) more parents come and 2) future customer (the kids) are secured. In the particular merendero we visited, there were at least 100 places outside for people to eat and drink – a sizeable increase in volume without equally high costs. If only the Irish weather were good enough to do this! But, I’m sure a clever restaurant owner could take some of the idea and increase their business success (and revenues).
Management accountant’s travelogue- part 1 – free ferry trips
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sorry about the somewhat cheesy title ! This summer, I spent about 3 weeks on a driving holiday in France and Spain. I love driving to Europe – no airports, luggage limit is a much as you can carry in your car, and you can stop when you want where you want. I drove just over 3,000 miles and stayed in some beautiful places. During my journey, the old business brain was not completely switched off so I’d like to share some things I noticed and thought about. Of course, they will be related to management accounting one way or another.
The first thing I noticed was that the ferry trip to France gave us a free trip to the UK. A free something is nothing new – you can lots of examples of free products, two for three deals etc. in books like Freakonomics and Undercover Economist. The deal was simply I got a free trip in a car ferry to the UK for a car and 2 adults once I completed my trip to Europe. On my return, I phoned and all went perfect. I had to pay a small amount for the kids, but we got the dates we wanted. So how much is this promotion costing the ferry company. I guess there are two ways of looking at it:
1) it costs them the lost revenue from two other paying passengers with a car – so a sort of opportunity cost
2) it costs nil, and in fact increases contribution.
Which one would you use if you were making the decision/reporting to management ? I’d go with the second view, especially in off-season. The ferry in question hardly ever leaves the Irish Sea – going back and forward to the UK three times every 24 hours, all year round. In off-season, the boat is not full – but the costs of running it are the same – both fixed and variable costs. Thus, any extra monies I spend – buying food for example – reduces the fixed costs burden. If I were to think about this free trip in full cost terms, I would probably not offer it to passengers as the fixed cost are unlikely to be covered. This would be the wrong decision in my view, as anything that contributes to the bottom line is better that nothing, or suffering the fixed costs regardless.
Tune in over the coming weeks for some more holiday stories.
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