Problem

Shifty Industries is a small business that sells home beauty products in the San Luis Obispo, California, area. The company has experienced a cash crunch and is unable to pay its bills on a timely basis. A great deal of pressure exists to minimize cash outflows such as income tax payments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by interpreting income tax regulations as liberally as possible. You are the tax accountant and a CPA working at the company and you report to the tax manager. He reports to the controller. You are concerned about the fact that your supervisor has asked you to go along with an improper treatment of section 179 depreciation on the 2015 tax return so you can deduct the $100,000 full cost of eligible equipment against taxable income. The problem as you see it is the 2014 limitation of $500,000, which would have been fine for 2015 had Congress extended it, was rolled back to a maximum of $25,000. Therefore, your supervisor is planning to allow Shifty to deduct $75,000 more than allowed by law. Using a 35 percent tax rate it means the company is "increasing" its cash flow by $26,250. Answer the following questions to prepare for a meeting you will have tomorrow morning with the tax manager.

Who are the stakeholders in this case and how might they be affected by your course of action?

What would you do and why, assuming your approach will be based on the application of the ethical reasoning methods discussed in the chapter?