Pittman Company is a small but growing manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. The company has no sales force of its own; rather, it relies completely on independent sales agents to market its products. These agents are paid a sales commission of 15% for all items sold. Barbara Cheney, Pittman's controller, has just prepared the company's budgeted income statement for next year as follows: Sales Manufacturing expenses: Variable Fixed overhead Gross margin Pittman Company Budgeted Income Statement For the Year Ended December 31 Selling and administrative expenses: Commissions to agents Fixed marketing expenses Fixed administrative expenses Net operating income Fixed interest expenses Income before income taxes Income taxes (30%) Net income *Primarily depreciation on storage facilities. $ 16,000,000 $ 7,200,000 2,340,000 9,540,000 6,460,000 2,400,000 120,000* 1,800,000 4,320,000 2,140,000 540,000 1,600,000 480,000 $ 1,120,000 As Barbara handed the statement to Karl Vecci, Pittman's president, she commented, "I went ahead and used the agents' 15% commission rate in completing these statements, but we've just learned that they refuse to handle our products next year unless we increase the commission rate to 20%." "That's the last straw," Karl replied angrily. "Those agents have been demanding more and more, and this time they've gone too far. How can they possibly defend a 20% commission rate?" "They claim that after paying for advertising, travel, and the other costs of promotion, there's nothing left over for profit, replied Barbara. "I say it's just plain robbery," retorted Karl. "And I also say it's time we dumped those guys and got our own sales force. Can you get your people to work up some cost figures for us to look at?" "We've already worked them up," said Barbara. "Several companies we know about pay a 7.5% commission to their own salespeople, along with a small salary. Of course, we would have to handle all promotion costs, too. We figure our fixed expenses would increase by $2,400,000 per year, but that would be more than offset by the $3,200,000 (20%* $16,000,000) that we would avoid on agents' commissions."