Answer:
<u>MEMO</u>
To: Treasurer of Trip Garage, Inc.
From: Me
Subject: Dispute over accrued revenue
Mrs. S. Apple,
Good evening. Regarding your dispute over accrued revenue generated form the repair of Mr. Mosley's car, I must inform you the following:
Trip Garage, Inc., is an accrual basis taxpayer, therefore, revenues must be recorded once the repair service was completed, not when the invoice was collected.
In future occasions when similar problems show up, you should record an allowance for doubtful accounts. This way, if you believe that an account receivable is unlikely to be collected, it will be not considered for the year's financial records. This adjusting journal entry must be recorded before the end of the year, if not, all related revenues must be included in the years income statement.
Regards,
Me
Explanation:
Accrual taxpayers are required to record revenues once the revenue generating activity has been completed, i.e. Trip should have recorded $1,000 in revenue during 2017:
Dr Accounts receivable 1,000
Cr Service revenue 1,000
If Trip didn't consider that it would be able to collect the $1,000 receivable, then it should have recorded it as bad debt expense:
Dr Bad debt expense 1,000
Cr Allowance for doubtful accounts 1,000
If thy did not record the bad expense, then the IRS agent is right, and the $1,000 must be included in the 2017 income statement.
