Given the following cost and activity observations for Smithson Company's utilities, use the high-low method to determine Smithson's fixed costs per month. Round your final answer to the nearest dollar. Do not round interim calculations.

	Cost	Machine Hours
January	$26,900	10,400
February	35,100	17,800
March	28,400	11,600
April	31,100	14,800

a.$15,376

b.$49,203

c.$26,139

d.$12,301

8. MC.20.87

Understanding how costs behave is useful to management for all of the following reasons except

a.predicting profits as sales and production volumes change

b.estimating costs

c.predicting customer demand

d.changing an existing product production