Answer the following questions. Please type using a word processing program and bring a printed copy to class. Write as much or as little as you feel necessary to answer each question to the best of your ability. You may use all available resources to complete this case – e.g., lecture slides, notes, your book, and the Accounting Standards Codification. Collaboration with others in your group is allowed to the extent that it is helpful. How you work together is up to you – however, I encourage everyone in the group to take at least some part for every question. Please turn in only one finished assignment for each group. Use appropriate citations were relevant and according to your professional judgment. For questions requiring the use of the codification, please use the following style: 

a). Cite the ASC down to the Paragraph. For example, (ASC 330-10-05-01) 

b). Copy-paste the paragraph you cite from the codification into the word document. 

c). Interpret the codification paragraph into ‘plain English’ as best you can. In other words, how would you explain the appropriate accounting treatment to a colleague, boss, or business partner who has a basic understanding of accounting? You may (and are encouraged to) use debits and credits or t-accounts to illustrate the accounting if appropriate. 

1). You are on a plane traveling to visit family (pre-Covid 19) and you scroll through some news headlines on your tablet. You end up reading an editorial that discusses the changing nature of the economy. Specifically, the writer speculates that new technology will make the accounting profession outdated, since computers will automatically track and compile all financial data and make it easy for anyone with an online connection to access any data about a company’s operations that they wish. How will this affect your career prospects, as an accountant-to-be? 

2). How would you improve the qualitative characteristics and/or the enhancing characteristics of high-quality accounting information? Do not simply repeat what they are, provide a suggestion as to how this part of the qualitative characteristics could be improved.

3). How does U.S. GAAP define “Cash” and “Cash Equivalents”, respectively? 

4).You decide to get into the mining business after graduation. You purchase a large tract of land in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains to search for precious minerals. However, as part of the land purchase and in order to begin mining, you agree with the state of California to return the land back to its original appearance once you are done mining. Find and interpret ASC guidance for how to account for this circumstance. (You may need to cite more than one paragraph.)

5). After a decade or so in mining, you decide to change jobs because you wanted to do nothing with anything related to tax or tax accounting ever again and in a regulated industry there was too much of this. A few years later, however, the controller comes to you with a comment letter from the SEC which expresses concern about how your company reports its current and deferred income tax accounts in its financial reports. You look as white as a sheet, because you hoped to never do tax accounting again. Find and interpret the appropriate ASC guidance for how to initially measure deferred taxes. (You may need to cite more than one ASC paragraph.)