Continue or discontinue a segment? The segmented income statement for XYZ Company for the year ended December 31, 2008, follows:

XYZ COMPANY Segmented Income Statement For the Year Ended December 31, 2008 Total __Company_Product A_Product B_Product C Sales. $1,200,000 $600,000 $240,000 $360,000 Variable expenses. 552,000 300,000 108,000 144,000 Contribution margin. $ 648,000 $300,000 $132,000 $216,000 Fixed expenses. 564,000 328,000 92,000 144,000 Operating income. $ 84,000 $(28,000) $ 40,000 $ 72,000 The company is concerned about the performance of product A, and you have been asked to analyze the situation and recommend to the president whether to continue or discontinue the product. During your investigation, you discover that certain fixed expenses are traceable directly to each product line as indicated here;
Total Company Product A Product B Product C Direct fixed expenses_ $204,000 $148,000 $20,000 $36,000 The remaining fixed expenses are considered to be corporatewide expenses that have been allocated to each product line based on sales revenue.
Required:

a. Prepare a relevant cost analysis for the decision to continue or discontinue product A. Comment on your analysis.

b. Assume that product A is discontinued. Prepare a segmented income statement for the remaining products. Allocate corporatewide fixed expenses as described.

c. Starting with the segmented income statement, use the information you discovered during your investigation to present a more appropriately designed segmented income statement. (Hint: Refer to Chapter 15.)

d. Explain to the president why the redesigned segmented income statement is more appropriate than the current one.