Select a public limited company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Go to the website of your company. Then go to the Investor Relations section of the website. This section may be called, “Investors”, “Shareholder Information” or similar name. In this section, go to your firm’s annual reports and save to your computer your firm’s latest annual reports consecutively for last three years. For example, these may be dated 30 June 2016 or 31 March 2017. Do not use your firm’s interim financial statements or their concise financial statements. Please read the financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, statement of changes in owner’s equity, cash flow statement) very carefully. Also please read the relevant footnotes of your firm’s financial statements carefully and include information from these footnotes in your answer.
You need to do the following tasks:
CASH FLOWS STATEMENT
(i) From your firm’s financial statement, list each item of reported in the CASH FLOWS STATEMENT and write your understanding of each item. Discuss any changes in each item of CASH FLOWS STATEMENT for your firm over the past year articulating the reasons for the change.
(ii) Provide a comparative analysis of your company’s three broad categories of cash flows (operating activities, investing activities, financing activities) and make a comparative evaluation for three years.
OTHER COMPREHENSIVE INCOME STATEMENT
(iii) What items have been reported in the other comprehensive income statement
(iv) Explain your understanding of each item reported in the other comprehensive income statement
(v) Why these items have not been reported in Income Statement/Profit and Loss Statement
ACCOUNTING FOR CORPORATE INCOME TAX
(vi) What is your firm’s tax expense in its latest financial statements?
(vii) Is this figure the same as the company tax rate times your firm’s accounting income? Explain why this is, or is not, the case for your firm.
(viii) Comment on deferred tax assets/liabilities that is reported in the balance sheet articulating the possible reasons why they have been recorded.
(ix) Is there any current tax assets or income tax payable recorded by your company? Why is the income tax payable not the same as income tax expense?
(x) Is the income tax expense shown in the income statement same as the income tax paid shown in the cash flow statement? If not why is the difference?
(xi) What do you find interesting, confusing, surprising or difficult to understand about the treatment of tax in your firm’s financial statements? What new insights, if any, have you gained about how companies account for income tax as a result of examining your firm’s tax expense in its accounts?
Please remember some aspects of your firm’s treatment of its tax –can be a very complicated area, particularly for some firms.
