Oh, no? You don't think it drives up the cost of the steel they use? Or the cost of the machinery and tooling they buy? What about the cost of building a factory? You think environmental regulations don't affect that?
Did I say it was? No. *You* brought that up. I didn't say anything at all about wages and benefits.
And I notice you didn't address the issue of OSHA and the other regulatory bureaucracies which encumber business throughout the U.S.
Yes. There's a photo of ten Mitutoyo gage blocks in a stack, mixed steel and zirconia ceramic, held by the top one, in an old article in Modern Machine Shop. It's my hand holding the stack.
If you stack say, three blocks, and they're improperly wrung, the total error of that stack might be 0.0001" or 0.0002". That's plenty close enough for the kind of checking we're talking about. The average hobbyist is going to have trouble reading absolute tenths, anyway, due to a host of factors.
However, if you're working in the sub-tenths range of accuracy, you need very good technique, as you say. Just handling gage blocks with bare hands can defeat you in that range.
The book value of capital assets is DEpreciated on a corporate tax return, based on the established depreciation rates for various assets, according to GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles)
Capital gains tax has very little effect on the cost of a Starrett mike vs. a import mike.
The cost of steel is the same as steel is a worldwide commodity. The cost of machinery and tooling is basically the same worldwide. Starrett's factory has been there a long time, I don't see them building a new one. And I don't see environmetal regs affecting construction, new buildings are going up all over the place. How many new cars factories have been built in the South? Plenty.Did environmetal regs hinder them? I think not.
If trade was free it would be, but the US government is always slapping huge tariffs and/or quotas on imported steel in order to protect inefficient domestic producers, so the price to the end user may not be the same.
========== This depends on your perception and what your level of employment is.
While Sarbox is indeed a cramp for the schemers, skimmers and scammers, it appears to be very helpful for the actual companies, their stock holders, and other stake-holders, in that it forces financial accountability onto the CEO who must now attest to the correctness of all financial statements and mandates verification of the adequacy of financial controls. A major weakness is the phrase "to the best of my knowledge," combined with a staff that understands their bonuses depend on their tacit appreciation of the phrase "plausible deniability."
The high cost of meeting the independent auditors requirements for verification of the adequacy of the financial controls and record keeping was/is *NOT* a problem with Sarbox, but rather a clear indication of the deplorable state of and total laxness in financial control prior to its enactment and enforcement.
Adequate, accurate and detailed financial records are just as important (some times more so) in a manufacturing operation as accurate machines, skilled machinists, and good prints/products. It is sad but accurate observation about too many (former) machine shops "they made it in the shop but they lost it in the ledger," (and this assume honest ignorance).
The ongoing housing [more precisely sub-prime mortgage/CDO] debacle indicates that Sarbox needs to be expanded to include financial operations such as banks to prohibit the use of SIVs [special investment vehicles] and conduits to hide debt and allow (encourage) speculative/fraudulent activities, with only the losses charged to the parent organization, while the profits are skimmed by third parties, many of whom have large conflicts of interest.
It was exactly this type of activity that brought Enron and several other shell corporations down, although their vehicles were called "Special Purpose Entities." (Apparently just the change from SPE to SIV was enough to evade Sarbox.) In addition to the fraudulent nature of many of these activities, these also evade the margin/reserve requirements imposed by the FRB and Comptroller of the Currency as a result of the experiences of the '29 crash.
In all likelihood, full implementation of Sarbox across the board and the imposition of the proposed FASB accounting revisions, particularly the reporting of "off the books" operations, would have prevented the creation of the real estate/CDO mortgage bubble, and the likely creation of a "super" RTC funded at taxpayer expense to tidy up the mess the high rollers left.
Frankly, the FASB [Financial Standards Accounting Board] needs to pound their reasonable accounting requirements up the noses of the skimmers and scammers, and the Feds need to get their act together such as mandating the use reasonable [possible] rates of assumed return on investment for pension fund calculations, with draconian penalties for evasion, such as prosecution under RICO on the basis of ongoing criminal enterprise, with asset confiscation and long prison terms. Indeed, it appears that the Mafia are pikers and tinhorns in comparison to the damage inflicted and boodle extracted by our corporate executives on working/saving Americans.
The American economy/society is now far too entwined and convoluted with the international financial/securities markets to allow business as usual in a "free (to do anything you want) market. Sarbox, as weak as it is, is an all too rare example of a law enacted that benefits the vast majority of people, even as it limits to some small extent the criminal and amoral activities of the schemers, scammers and skimmers.
The next big scam is most likely the creation of a stock backed trust fund by the Detroit big-three to assume liability for their retire medical obligations, which I am sure will be as solvent as the airline ESOPs. Check the tax consequences to see why this is such a good deal for the companies, both coming and going [into chapter 11], and why the UAW retirees, shareholders, and US taxpayers are going to take it in the shorts big-time (again).
Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.
Well, it just blows my SOX off...The following site appears to be a mix of a blog and a SOX head hunting site. Any time that lawyers are involved in writing laws, they become hard to interpret. The goal of SOX is laudable, but giving the government the power to enforce it seems more dangerous than the Patriot Act could ever be.
When the tax code is written so there is no interpretation, then it will be how much did you earn? how much does it cost you to live? send us the check for the difference... The same with trying to apply auditing that is affected by the tax code. Can you prove beyond a doubt that you properly depreciated or amortized whatever every year for the past ten years, if the tax code has changed every year?
Looking through the eyes of Internal Review, good auditing practice would reduce the need for something like SOX. But add the twisted effects of trying to apply (or mitigate) the current tax code and things become less clear...
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Wall Street moves on red tape as IPO exodus continues
TyraTech, a maker of environmentally friendly pesticides, became the latest American company to float in London yesterday as growing concerns about the IPO drain from New York to the City prompted the formation of a heavyweight Wall Street panel.
The panel is being set up by Eliot Spitzer, the former attorney-general of New York who is now governor of the state. Mr Spitzer, who has given the panel until June next year to propose legislative changes, said yesterday that ?the financial world has changed and we must change with it to retain our leadership position?. TyraTech, a Florida compan that raised £25 million from floating on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London, said that the cost and inconvenience of strict American listing requirements, introduced after the collapse of Enron, were key to its decision to float overseas.
Douglas Armstrong, the chief executive, said: ?The Sarbanes-Oxley regulations undoubtedly played a part in our decision to list in London because they place a heavy burden on small-cap companies in terms of time and cost.?
The flotation of TyraTech takes the number of US firms on AIM to about 70.
FEI Survey: Management Drives Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Costs Down by
23%, But Auditor Fees Virtually Unchanged
Financial Executives International (FEI) announced today the results of its sixth Sarbanes-Oxley compliance survey, which found that Section 404 compliance cost Corporate America less in year three of adoption than in each of the first two years. FEI polled 200 companies to gauge experiences in complying with Section 404. Responding companies have average revenues of $6.8 billion.
Right - have the Mitutoyo Metrology Handbook from the training class. Never was able to go (outside my Sr. Scientist requirements) but got the book. If the blocks are not clean there is even more issues. Some think wiping with a cloth is clean enough. Films are thick.
But hobby types like me likes to do what we can and hold to the level we want. The real pro's have to know what they do.
I was impressed in some shops and the mechanical as well as electronic measuring instruments for large 4' sized gears and stuff.
Mart>> Unless someone has been trained or studied a manual, the improper use
A capital asset , even real estate that can appreciates in value, is depreciated on the books for tax purposes. Therefore the corporation is getting the tax write off each year until the asset is fully depreciated. When the asset is sold off in the future, capital gains is owed on the final value. Think of it as paying back the tax writeoffs the corporation collected earlier.
Now that the accounting lesson is over, perhaps you can explain how capital gains tax increases the cost for Starrett to manufacture its products???? Or are you just parroting Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity???
Can't see the forest for the trees... Why is the tax law so convoluted at the start? It's like setting someone up to fail.
Since this accounting stuff is so clear to you, please explain to us all the compliance costs, per year, of all regulation on US businesses. This includes the legal representation, accounting departments, OSHA, ADA, Social Security, Unemployment, Medicare, environmental, EEO, and the myriad other little love taps from Federal and State governments.
========= As my father used to say "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
If an American company can't or won't keep honest books then they are free to more somewhere else. They would however do well to remember that in many other countries such as China, if you are caught stir-frying the books, they stand you up against a wall and shoot you, bill your estate for the ammunition, and confiscate the estates remaining assets.
Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.
=========== While the simple few do fail, the complexities of the code offer more than ample loop-holes, exceptions, anomalies, etc., etc. so that the sharpies, angle players, and corner cutters can avoid/evade paying significant portions of their taxes, effectively shifting their share of the cost of government onto the rest of us.
Be reminded that in many areas the state and local taxes and fees including property and sales are as significant as the federal taxes, and are no longer deductible from income on your federal tax return. Many of the major corporations have managed to extort significant reductions and exemptions through abatements, tax increment financing, etc. while increasing the tax burden on pre-existing locally owned and operated businesses, as well as individuals.
It is at least plausible that the IRS code is deliberately convoluted to both entrap the simple [i.e. average citizen] and reward the "players."
Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.
In short, you have defined the reason for lobbyists - to keep the federal government away from business, failing that, make it more difficult for competitors to operate.
What is the actual co$t to the public for our tax code? Look at the farm subsidies... The candy industry could use real sugar if it wasn't so expensive. So the sugar beet and cane sugar growers in the US derive benefit from trade restrictions, the US economy takes one for the team for higher prices, and in the end, the consumer still pays.... Either taxes for subsidies or higher prices for the product.
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