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Lottery Ticket Case II Solution

Decent Essays

Five-Step Approach to Unstructured Problems 1. Succinct Statement of the Financial Reporting Issue(s) Provide a brief statement of the accounting issue that includes the characteristics of the transaction that introduce uncertainty about how to record it. How should an expenditure, in this instance to purchase a lottery ticket, which has a risk of providing no future cash flows be reported? 2. Brief Summary of the Economic Purpose of the Transaction State the reason corporate management has entered into the transaction, or, alternatively, summarize the event that has led to the reporting controversy. (This can be difficult in some practice cases but is usually obvious in the FASB concepts cases.) Phil N. Tropic bought a …show more content…

The alternative of recording an asset for market value in the secondary market, say $90, is supported if Phil has the intention of selling the ticket before the drawing. In this instance, the $90 is a probable future economic event, given his intention to sell. He has control over this benefit as long as an active secondary market develops, and past history says this has happened in recent years. And Phil has purchased the ticket, so a past transaction has occurred. In this situation, he should record an asset of $90 and expense the other $60 as a contribution expense. Note that, although United Charities has reserved the right to cancel the drawing, the chances of a refund from cancellation are very unlikely based on past history. A refund would support an asset of $150, but I have not developed the merits of this alternative. I have not developed alternative d (the expected value of $100) because a better estimate of pre-drawing value is $90 from the secondary market. With regard to the other three recognition criteria, I am assuming the amounts are material and would be relevant to a user of the financial report. Both the $150 cost of the lottery ticket and the probability of winning the drawing (1 in 50) are definite so these amounts would meet the recognition criteria of measurable and reliable. The approximate market value in a secondary market is less measurable and

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