Prepare a report (3-5 pages) that analyzes aspects of a potential partnership arrangement.
Introduction
In this assessment, you will investigate aspects of partnership formation, operation, and termination, as well as certain elements of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s reporting requirements pertaining to corporations.
Demonstration of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies through corresponding scoring guide criteria:
Competency 1: Apply advanced accounting techniques to organizational situations.
Create a schedule showing how a partnership income would be allocated to each of the partners using interest allowances and salary allowances.
Create a schedule showing how a partnership loss would be allocated to each of the two partners to make loss-sharing as fair as possible.
Discuss how the Securities and Exchange Commission’s segment reporting requirements apply to corporations.
Competency 4: Apply quantitative models to create and manage budgets and forecasts and evaluate budget performance.
Create a schedule that shows how partnership assets would be allocated in the event of a liquidation.
Competency 5: Communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.
Communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.
Scenario
A client of yours is considering going into a partnership with a business associate. The partnership would own a retail gourmet ice cream shop. Your client anticipates investing $150,000 and working ten hours a week. His business associate will invest $50,000 and work forty hours a week. Your client has requested your informed perspective on a number of items before he commits to the business partnership.
Your Role
You are a self-employed accountant.
Requirements
Your client has requested the following be included in a report (3-5 pages) that he can study while considering how to approach this business opportunity:
Your client does not think that splitting the partnership income 50-50 will be fair to either partner. He has asked you to recommend clauses in the partnership agreement that stipulate partnership income and loss allocations.
Create a recommended income allocation schedule using interest allowances at 10 percent a year and salary allowances at $25 an hour. For the sake of example, assume partnership income of $100,000.
Create a recommended loss allocation schedule. For the sake of example, assume partnership losses of $40,000.
Your client would also like you to create a schedule that shows what happens if this partnership is successful and the two partners agree to sell the company in 10 years.
For the sake of this calculation, pretend that the partnership’s assets in 10 years are $900,000, liabilities are $200,000, your client’s capital is $400,000 and his associate’s capital is $300,000.
Pretend that the partnership assets are sold for $1,200,000, and the liabilities are settled for the existing value of $200,000.
The company’s flagship location would be in Buffalo, New York, but the potential partners have already discussed opening additional locations in Toronto, Canada. The client knows that as a partnership they would not have to meet the Securities and Exchange Commission’s segment reporting requirements, but the client wants to know what happens if they reorganize as a corporation when they move into the Canadian market. Discuss how the Securities and Exchange Commission’s segment reporting requirements apply to corporations.
Deliverable Format
Since you plan to deliver this report to a paying client, you want this document to be clear, well-organized, and readable. You decide that the report should be 4–6 pages so that you have enough space to respond to your client’s concerns and provide some scholarly and/or professional context.
Communication: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and consistent with the needs and expectations of your client. Professional standards dictate that your work be original and free of errors that detract from the overall message.
Robert Filmer and Thomas Hobbes were two of the biggest proponents for absolute monarchy of their generation. While both were in favor of absolutism as well as total control given to the respective sovereign, the basis of their reasoning differs fundamentally. Robert Filmer claimed that absolute monarchy comes from the patriarchal rule, sanctioned by God himself. Filmer believes Adam was the first patriarch, and was given authority over his children, with each successive family following this sort of tier system(FIlmer 6-7). Accordingly, Filmer recognizes that families and towns will eventually grow, making it difficult to trace or decide lineage of the original patriarch, and in these situations, patriarchs may come together and decide on a sovereign. Filmer says that this decision is not really a decision of the people, but rather one of the “universal” patriarch, God himself(Filmer 11). Filmer uses this patriarchal tier system as his justification for absolute monarchy, as this is what God prescribed when giving Adam and succeeding patriarchs authority over their respective families. Monarchs should be given absolute power because it is the will of God in being granted authority as a patriarch, and citizens are essentially descendants of this patriarch, so it is their god-given duty to obey. Additionally, the Sovereign is bound by divine law and law of previous ruling patriarchs, and those who disobey will be rightfully punished harshly by God(Filmer 11).
While Filmer argues for Absolutism on the basis of God, Thomas Hobbes, another absolutist proponent, argues this idea as an alternative to the “state of nature” in which man lived in before organized government. This state of nature was one of instability, and full of anarchy, as men are naturally self-interested(Hobbes 112). Hobbes believes that governments were formed to begin with to bring stability to this state of nature. The sovereign and the people have a sort of contract ensuring security and protection, and this security may only be achieved through total obedience to the sovereign(Hobbes Chap. 30). In obeying the sovereign, the people are in theory obeying themselves. The sovereign is the sole legislator, and it is the people’s contractual duty to obey(Hobbes 176). Hobbes recognizes that a sovereign may make decisions unfavorable to som