ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews Professor Henry Rand Hatfield's new book, which possesses keen knowledge of accounts that permits so long a period as eighteen years to elapse between first and second edition. Professor Hatfield says, the enactment of the Federal income tax law has, more than any other single event, emphasized the necessity of keeping accounts that will exhibit with approximate accuracy the annual income. But no mention is made of the very serious departures from good accounting practice which appears in the Federal law and the regulations. Professor Hatfield has a keen grasp of the present inconsistency in balance sheets in which some accounts are meticulously adjusted to odd dollars and cents as to cost; other items are included at value, and still others at some figure in between cost and value. Professor Hatfield can sustain his position that the fact of overvaluation can be adequately represented by crediting an allowance for overvaluation.
