You can now understand why accountants use grandiose words such as 'convention', 'established practice', etc, to disguise the value judgments they have made in their guesses. How easy it is for different accountants, using the same piece of evidence, to arrive at widely differing results These are revenue items. Tax. You may suggest that surely if this is how 'profit' is measured over time, we can use the taxes which have been paid on them as a check on Inland Revenue claims. Sorry; this is not so.

The Inland Revenue have ways for making tax assessments other that using published accounts. The question of 100 per cent capital allowances which can be currently demanded makes it almost impossible for a company to make an estimate of taxation. For you, this means that if you are considering buying into, or starting a business, it may be relatively easy to assess its value and how much you need for capital assets.

(Indeed, raising money for these is usually relatively simple.) What is going to prove difficult is assessing how much you are going to need for your trading cycle. Costs remain at a steady ratio to sales and you can see steady net 10 per cent profit from all sales made. Even better, everything happens on only one day each month.