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Creative Accounting
(redirected from Cooking the books)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.02 sec.
creative accounting
The use of aggressive and/or questionable accounting techniques in order to produce a desired result, generally high earnings per share. Creative accounting may include selling assets with a low cost basis, shipping unusually large quantities of product near the end of the year, and failure to write down inventories that have declined in value.

Creative Accounting
The practice of recognizing revenue in a way that makes a company look better than it is while still conforming to the GAAP. Creative accounting seeks to inflate stock prices, for example, by selling assets at the end of a year to create a profit that offsets a loss. One could argue that creative accounting hides a company's true financial state, but, unlike aggressive accounting, creative accounting is generally legal. It is also called financial engineering. See also: Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.


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During an interview published in Barron's, CNN's Lou Dobbs agreed that the government is cooking the books on key economic statistics.
Parks has accused Bratton of cooking the books on crime statistics.
The lifetime ban is "rare if not unique" for regulators and shows that the government is going after accountants who appeared to be playing ball with management in cooking the books, asserts Douglas Carmichael, the newly appointed chief auditor for the powerful Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
 
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