1. Accounting (Source: “Keiei Zaimu Magazine”) The Japan Industrial Management & Accounting Institute has released the results of “a survey on budgeting system 2012”. Most of those surveyed were listed companies, and 60% of respondents were manufacturing firms.
According to the survey, 18.8% said they were formulating a long-term management plan (5 years or more), 87.2% were formulating a medium-term management plan (1 year or more and less than 5 years), and 68.5% were formulating a short-term management plan (less than a year). With regard to the shortest budget term, the largest percentage of companies, 68.5%, answered one month, and 15.2% answered 6 months, which was a 5.1% decrease from the last survey in 2002. This indicates that companies are following quicker PDCA cycle budgeting.
In addition, 41.8% of companies have introduced ERP, and 37.0% are considering doing so, indicating that ERP is being effectively utilized in budgetary variance analysis and budget formulation.
2. Taxation (Source: “T&A master No.497”) On April 3rd, 2013, the Nagoya High Court reversed a lower court’s decision and ruled in favor of the government with regard to tax planning for inheritance which uses a foreign trust from grandparents through grandchildren living overseas. Herein we briefly describe the Court’s ruling on standard of domicile. Taking into account the special nature of infants, the Nagoya High Court placed more importance on parents’ principal place of residence than the usual standard of their children’s length of stay overseas. The taxpayer appealed to the Supreme Court immediately after this judgment.
3. This Week’s Words of Wisdom
“Happiness consists more in the small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.” (Benjamin Franklin)
I suppose that great fortune consists of not only one event, but a combination of family, work, friends, etc.