Bank Accounts: A World Guide to Confidentiality by Edouard Chambost; Peter Walton;Margaret ThompsonReview by: Rasoul H. TondkarThe Accounting Review, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Oct., 1985), pp. 775-776Published by: American Accounting AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/247495 .

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Book Reviews 775

tecting and deterring fraud. ALAN G. MAYPER Associate Professor of Accounting

Texas A&M University

ROBERT N. ANTHONY and DAVID W. YOUNG, Management Control in Nonprofit Orga- nizations, Third Edition (Homewood: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1984, pp. xvi, 680, $30.95).

The first edition of this book was a pioneering effort in an area where no textbooks previously ex- isted; a primary change introduced in the revised edition (reviewed January 1981, pp. 204-205) was the addition of cases. The most significant change noted for this third edition results from the replace- ment of the second author. Both are Harvard pro- fessors, but Regina Herzlinger was in the Graduate School of Business Administration while David Young is in the School of Public Health.

The change in perspective precipitated by this is best illustrated by the cases. This edition intro- duces 36 new cases while retaining 12 from the second edition. Professor Young authored or di- rected the preparation of one-third of the 48 cases and, furthermore, approximately one-half of all cases now involve health-related organizations. The addition of the new cases allows the user to narrow the focus of a course from the general "nonprofit" to a more specific subset such as "health care" if desired. Although some material has been rearranged, the other primary change is the inclusion of two new chapters-one on finan- cial statements and another on cost accounting. The addition of these chapters is useful, but does not alter the fact that this is a text on management control and not accounting, and should be used accordingly.

An instructor's guide is available. It contains a brief but informative discussion of the case method of teaching, provides "teaching approaches" to the various cases, and suggests cases that the authors have found useful for examination pur- poses.

The changes in this edition, principally the ex- panded number and breadth of cases, should allow this text to continue as a leader in the public sector management control area.

THOMAS P. HOWARD Assistant Professor of Accountancy

University of Missouri-Columbia

BRIAN ARMITAGE, Business Expansion Scheme (London: The Institute of Chartered Ac- countants in England and Wales, 1984, pp. xiii, 192, ?8.95 paper).

The Business Expansion Scheme (BES) of the Finance Act 1983 (United Kingdom) is explained in-depth and contrasted to its predecessor, the Business Start-Up Scheme (BSS) which focused on incentives for new companies. The BES extends in- vestment incentives to existing unquoted compa- nies by providing the immediate write-off of ?500 to ?40,000 investments in the stock of qualifying companies by eligible taxpayers. The law has many complexities designed to limit its use to the speci- fically targeted trades by taxpayers who do not already have substantial connections to these com- panies. The author refers to the BES as "an intri- cately engineered mechanism designed to be the vehicle for financing growth in the unquoted trad- ing company sector" (p. 61).

To fully benefit from the book's discussion of the BES, the reader needs some acquaintance with the British schedular system of taxation and the relevance of April 5th to tax determination. Lack- ing that, the reader can still gain an appreciation of the complexity which surrounds a seemingly straightforward equity investment incentive. The only similar equity investment incentive available to U.S. taxpayers is the ordinary loss treatment afforded Sec. 1244 stock; but this only provides relief some time after investment when the stock proves worthless or is sold at a loss. The BES pro- vides incentives at the time the investment is made. Much of the complexity enters the law then because the investment must remain for at least five years and the initial qualifying conditions must be ad- hered to throughout this investment period to avoid the extensive recapture provisions.

This book should be of interest to the serious student of tax incentives and reform. It superbly illustrates the principle that the more limited the target of a tax provision, the more complex must be the rules required to implement it.

KAREN A. FORTIN Associate Professor of Accounting

University of Miami

EDOUARD CHAMBOST, Translated by Peter Walton and Margaret Thompson, Bank Accounts: A World Guide to Confidential- ity (Chichester and New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1983, pp. xii, 322, $31.95).

For years, many have attempted to open bank accounts and maintain funds in countries com- monly known as "banking havens" for various rea- sons (e.g., avoiding currency exchange controls, searching for security, avoiding taxes, etc.). A "banking haven" is defined as "a country in which the degree of banking secrecy available to individ-

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776 The Accounting Review, October 1985

uals and legal entities is much more extensive than in other countries" (p. x). This book provides a comparative description and analysis of the banking secrecy available in various countries. It also cate- gorizes the countries offering banking secrecy into groups having similar characteristics.

Before examining the individual banking ha- vens, the author discusses several topics related to the concept and uses of banking secrecy; these in- clude the legal history of banking secrecy, instru- ments used to accommodate banking secrecy, and the politics of banking secrecy.

International banking secrecy started in the aftermath of World War I in the wake of exacer- bating national exchange controls and certain countries offering valueless pieces of paper in ex- change for goods and services (p. 5). In 1934, Switzerland incorporated its traditional banking secrecy into law to avoid the abuses of the Gestapo. Such a move was considered necessary to protect clients, bankers, and employees against the actions of foreign powers. Since then, other countries with banking secrecy have adopted similar policies. An interesting aspect of this book is the reproduction of some documents that illustrate banking secrecy (e.g., those relating to numbered accounts and ac- counts under assumed names).

Most of this book is devoted to describing the various banking havens relative to economic situa- tions, population, stability, communications and legal systems, currency and exchange controls, banking systems, banking secrecy, techniques of banking secrecy, taxation, international agree- ments, and financial markets. The author summa- rizes this information in tabular form, which en- ables the reader to quickly review and compare various banking havens. The final sections include a glossary, a bibliography, and an index.

The author has substantially accomplished his stated objective of explaining and describing var- ious banking havens and the form of banking se- crecy available in different countries. But some parts of the book do not read smoothly and seem somewhat awkward. This may be due, at least in part, to the translation from French to English. Nevertheless, this book would be of interest to a broad spectrum of readers including investors and bankers, and it would be a valuable library refer- ence book for international banking and account- ing courses.

RAsouL H. TONDKAR Assistant Professor of Accounting

Virginia Commonwealth University

F. L. CLARKE, The Tangled Web of Price Variation Accounting: The Development

of Ideas Underlying Professional Prescrip- tions in Six Countries (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1982, pp. xix, 444, $55.00).

This book is a revision of Clarke's Ph.D. disser- tation at the University of Sydney. It explores the ideas underlying the studies, papers, drafts, re- ports, and standards that have been issued on ac- counting for inflation by and for the professional accounting bodies in Australia, Canada, New Zea- land, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and by the International Account- ing Standards Committee.

Clarke argues that none of the prescriptions in any of these many documents and reports have contained a mechanism for incorporating "the in- disputable financial (effects) of inflation (into). . published financial statements" (p. 1).

He develops six underlying propositions that he maintains explain the failure of inflation account- ing. At the core of these are (1) the treatment of changes in specific and general prices as being un- related; (2) the implicit assumption that purchasing power is related only to money, and thus, that vendible physical assets have no purchasing power significance (he calls this the "non-monetary trap"); and (3) the consequence of the "non- monetary trap" of not recognizing in the accounts the specific power of vendible assets to purchase money that leads to an inability to measure the general purchasing power consequences of holding physical assets.

Although still written in a tedious, redundant style often encountered in dissertations, this exten- sively researched book, its propositions, analysis, and conclusions merit further study and should be of interest to most accountants. Thus it should be added to libraries for research and reference use.

H.S.H.

G. W. DEAN and M. C. WELLS, Editors, Fore- runners of Realizable Values Accounting in Financial Reporting (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1982, pp. xxvii, 320, $45.00). This book of readings contains two introductory

pieces and 32 articles, excerpts from books, selec- tions from court cases, editorials, and editorial letters that have been assembled as recurring his- torical evidence of market/selling/realizable val- ues being considered significant in the estimation of income/profit and financial position. The earli- est piece is an introduction to a book on Italian bookkeeping published in London in 1735 and the

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