Những người khác mất một cách tiếp cận bảo thủ hơn, và họ không bao gồm tài sản vô hình. Cách tiếp cận này là phù hợp hơn để đo lường giá trị thanh lý của công ty. Một nguồn không chính xác phát sinh từ thực tế rằng các công ty không cần phải bao gồm tất cả các khoản nợ của họ trên bảng cân đối kế toán. | 122 appendix a see box countants have discretion concerning the treatment of intangible assets such as patents trademarks or franchises. Some believe that including these intangibles on the balance sheet provides the best measure of the company s value as an ongoing concern. Others take a more conservative approach and they exclude intangible assets. This approach is better suited for measuring the liquidation value of the firm. Another source of imprecision arises from the fact that firms are not required to include all their liabilities on the balance sheet. For example firms are not always required to include as liabilities on the balance sheet the value of their lease They likewise are not required to include the value of several potential obligations such as warrants6 sold to investors or issued to employees. Even bigger differences can arise in international comparisons. Accounting practices can vary greatly from one country to another. For example in the United States firms generally maintain one set of accounts that is sent to investors and a different set of accounts that is used to calculate their tax That would not be allowed in most countries. On the other hand United States standards are more stringent in most other regards. For example German firms have far greater leeway than United States firms to tuck money away in hidden reserve accounts. When Daimler-Benz AG producer of the Mercedes-Benz automobile decided to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993 it was required to revise its accounting practices to conform to United States standards. While it reported a modest profit in the first half of 1993 using German accounting rules it reported a loss of 592 million under the much more revealing United States rules primarily because of differences in the treatment of reserves. Such differences in international accounting standards pose a problem for financial analysts who attempt to compare firms using data from their
