Assigning Overhead to Jobs-Ethical Issues-

Tonya Martin, CMA and controller of the Parts Division of Gunderson Pty Ltd, was meeting with Doug Adams, manager of the division. The topic of discussion was the assignment of overhead costs to jobs and their impact on the division's pricing decisions. Their conversation is reproduced below.

TONYA: Doug, as you know, about 25% of our business is based on government contracts, with the other 75% based on jobs from private sources won through bidding. During the last several years, our private business has declined. We have been losing more bids than usual. After some careful investigation, I have concluded that we are overpricing some jobs because of improper assignment of overhead costs. Some jobs are also being underpriced. Unfortunately, the jobs being overpriced are coming from our higher-volume, labour-intensive products, so we are losing business.

DOUG: I think I understand. Jobs associated with our high-volume products are being assigned more overhead than they should be receiving. Then when we add our standard 40% markup, we end up with a higher price than our competitors, who assign costs more accurately.

TONYA: Exactly. We have two production departments, one labour-intensive and the other machine-intensive. The labour-intensive department generates much less overhead than the machine-intensive department. Furthermore, virtually all of our high-volume jobs are labourintensive. We have been using a plant-wide rate based on direct labour hours to assign overhead to all jobs. As a result, the high-volume, labour-intensive jobs receive a greater share of the machine-intensive department's overhead than they deserve. This problem can be greatly alleviated by switching to departmental overhead rates. For example, an average high-volume job would be assigned $100 000 of overhead using a plant-wide rate and only $70 000 using departmental rates. The change would lower our bidding price on high-volume jobs by an average of $42 000 per job. By increasing the accuracy of our product costing, we can make better pricing decisions and win back much of our private-sector business.

DOUG: Sounds good. When can you implement the change in overhead rates?

TONYA: It won't take long. I can have the new system working within four to six weeks-certainly by the start of the new financial year.

DOUG: Hold it. I just thought of a possible complication. As I recall, most of our government contract work is done in the labour-intensive department. This new overhead assignment scheme will push down the cost on the government jobs, and we will lose revenues. They pay us full cost plus our standard markup. This business is not threatened by our current costing procedures, but we can't switch our rates for only the private business. Government auditors would question the lack of consistency in our costing procedures.

TONYA: You do have a point. I thought of that issue, too. According to my estimates, we will gain more revenues from the private sector than we will lose from our government contracts. Besides, the costs of our government jobs are distorted. In effect, we are overcharging the government.

DOUG: They don't know that, and never would, unless we switch our overhead assignment procedures. I think I have the solution. Officially, let's keep our plant-wide overhead rate. All of the official records will reflect this overhead costing approach for both our private and government business. Unofficially, I want you to develop a separate set of books that can be used to generate the information we need to prepare competitive bids for our private-sector business.

Required:

1. Do you believe that the solution proposed by Doug is ethical? Explain.

2. Suppose that Tonya decides that Doug's solution is not right and objects strongly. Further suppose that, despite Tonya's objections, Doug insists strongly on implementing the action. What should Tonya do?