Reminisicing

2008 was a year of many endings.

Many Deaths...
2008 stood out for the sheer number of deaths that impacted me - Arthur C Clarke, Samuel Huntington, J.B. Jeyaretnam, Loh Hwei Yen

Arthur C Clarke(16 December 1917–19 March 2008)
Arthur C Clarke was the favourite author of my childhood - I spent hours in the library reading his books, and when my secondary school cleared out its library in preparation for the move to the new campus, I picked my way through the garbage centre in the school compound, picking up ragged copies of his books, many missing their covers or with pages dangling. These books accompanied me through many years, many of them finally disintegrating with so much use. Arthur C Clarke  introduced me to the mysteries and wonders of science and, in particular astronomy, and opened my mind to the sheer possibilities and potential (and limitations) of mankind. He was also probably single-handedly responsible for my dreams of being an astronomer, and even though I have since walked down a vastly different path, I still retain my childhood love and respect of science and most importantly, my appreciation of just how wonderful and amazing the real world can be in itself, without the need for the leavening of the super-natural, in no small part thanks to this man.

Samuel Huntington (18 April 1927–December 24, 2008)
Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order was a significant part of my A Levels education - History was my joy and passion during those years, and Samuel Huntington brought to mind the happy days spent sitting in class discussing the use and purpose of history, whether it can ever reach the kind of acceptance that economics and other social sciences seems to have achieved etc etc. He opened my eyes to the importance of culture, and lit in me a desire that still exists today to understand more about different countries, different cultures and how these influence how people think, how they make decisions, and ultimately how the world ticks.

The ideas of these two men have a significant role in who I am today - a person who strives to be a rationalist, and with an appreciation of culture and the arts. A lawyer who volunteers at the Asian Civilisation Museum, an atheist who is interested in religion, a person who likes to ask "why", a person who strives to understand the world - politically, culturally, scientifically.

Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam (5 January 1926 - 30 September 2008)
Closer to home, the death of JBJ was unexpected. He was my introduction to Singapore opposition politics, which was sparked when my parents return from an opposition rally being conducted at the car park just below our block of flats - I remembered looking up wide-eyed when my dad entered our flat, while in the middle of a conversation with mum, saying - "he will be sued, for sure." "He" is of course JBJ, who was indeed sued by the then Prime Minister (now Minister Mentor) for making allegedly defamatory remarks. I remembered watching him hawk books in Raffles Place, and observing people discreetly pressing money into his hands that far exceed the cost of each book. At first I wondered, why would anyone help a man like that? As I grew older, I understand that it is precisely men like that who we should respect - men who lived for their principles, and not for a multi-million dollar salary. I remembered meeting his son, then President of the Law Society during a seminar by Michael Caplan QC on the Pinochet affair, and wondering, just what does the son think of his father's politics. I may not like his "angry" brand of politics but I respect him as a man of principles and a man who had sacrificed his material comfort in pursuit of these principles. I am not sure that I will ever have that ability to do so.

Loh Hwei Yen (1980 - 27 November 2008) 
Hwei Yen - I still do not know how to respond to her death. I don't know her but her death hit way too close to home. One year my junior in law school, married to the brother of one of my hall mates, worked in the same two law firms I have worked in and am currently working in, gunned down in a terrorist attack on a hotel that almost every Singaporean lawyer will stay in if they are in Mumbai for a business trip. Our paths must have crossed numerous times - during school days, at office functions, at weddings and parties. I remembered the shock that went through my office when news of her death came out - almost all of us know her or someone who is connected to her - she is one of us - the illusion that most of us had been under - that we are relatively safe being but a insignificant little red dot with little political or economic clout in the world, and personally as non-combat professionals who are as far from the frontline as it can be - shattered with her death.

( Other Endings ... )

2008 was a year of many endings but every ending is a new beginning ...

Exams are over. The last paper on Advanced Financial Accounting was tough - what on earth are the consolidation entries for a downstream sale of debt securities whose fair value is higher than the amortised value, and sold at an unrealised profit? Evil evil... it is nowhere as evil as the question she set for our presentation question though - accounting for debt securities held as AFS which is denominated at a foreign currency, and there have been changes in the exchange rate as well as massive declines in fair value of the debt securities. Took my team almost a week to solve the question, and it was so painful... though I have to say that right now I have almost committed the definitions of FVTPL, AFS, HTM and Loans & Receivables to memory!! But hey, she gave my team an A for the presentation, so that helps mitigate the Fs I have gotten on my two quizzes, which is something I guess.

Assuming I pass my two papers - Accounting Theory (a waste of trees, and definitely environmentally unfriendly) and Advanced Financial Accounting, I will have successfully completed my Master in Professional Accounting. And arrogant though it may sound, I am darn proud of myself - a girl who used to fail Maths with depressing regularity from primary school all the way to junior college actually getting an accounting degree - it doesn't come easy you know?

The next question is - what do I do now? In a way, things are falling into place - I had promised my bosses that I will stay on in my current job till the end of 2009 and with this lousy economic climate it does seem to be a smart move anyway. It is no pain to stay on - I like my bosses, I like my job, I like my colleagues and my pay is good, so really, no complaints here. Hopefully, however, the economic climate will improve by 2010 - much as I love this place, I really think that it is essential for my career development to get some overseas experience - Singapore is too darn small!

For 2009 however, I am thinking of studying French and starting on the CPA Australia programme. I was at the CPA Australia information session a few days ago - and it doesn't look too difficult - nothing compared with the SMU MPA programme at any rate, especially since I can do just one module per semester. The tricky bit is finding a mentor, especially since so much of my work is confidential and privileged so I need to figure that one out - maybe there is someone in my firm who is a CPA and willing to act as my mentor? I will need to discuss this with my bosses. I need to figure out the CPA SIngapore requirements as well - I have six years of experience working in tax and trusts, even though I have not worked under a CPA except for about a year, so I am not sure how that works out. If I need to take a series of exams for the CPA Singapore qualification though, I'll probably opt out - I want an international qualification that can bring me places (CPA Australia should help me with finding a job in Australia at the very least, and that will be a step towards my goal of getting a PR in another country), and if I want a Singapore qualification, I much rather take the STEP qualification -  I can do the thesis route rather than doing the entire course since I have sufficient work experience and it is probably much less painful and more relevant to my work in any case.

Right now, however, I am enjoying myself! I have quite a lot of vouchers from my credit cards, so I managed to get a 3D2N stay at Swissotel The Stamford at a really great price, and since I was staying in town (Swissotel is right smack in the shopping district), I was catching up on all my shopping - I finished my Xmas and CNY shopping already!  I also found information on the wine fridge that I have been meaning to get since last year - so that will be next on my shopping list. I am considering getting one of those OSIM massage chairs for my parents - my father has been longing for one for years (since I was a teenager) but we never could afford one until now. I need to do my sums and see if I can get one for him, especially now that he is retired and spends most of the day watching cable TV - yes we finally got cable as well and my parents are now glued to the TV everyday. My brother claims that he only manages to watch TV after midnight nowdays, and I still haven't watched anything on cable yet - and at the rate the TV is being hogged, I wouldn't get a chance!

The real treat is my stay at Changi Village Hotel with its absolutely fantastic spa and beautiful swimming pool, as well as the great food just outside the hotel and the beachside boardwalk :-) I have a long-overdue appointment with my hairdresser as well later this month (she is such a dearie, I've been going to her for hair services since I was in university, and she knows that I only go around three times a year, this year though, I been so busy that I haven't seen her since Chinese New Year!)

It'll be back to work next week, and to be honest, I am quite looking forward to a year in which I can focus on my work and not be constantly distracted by demands from the MPA programme - hopefully the next year, tough as it may be economically, will be a good year for me professionally as I integrate my accounting knowledge into my practice, and as I lay the groundwork for my eagerly-awaited leap out of Singapore. Yay!!!!

I just finished Accounting Theory class - assuming I pass all my papers for this term - today's class is the last class of my MPA programme.  Can't be sooner I guess - these couple of weeks, I find myself snappish, short-tempered, irritable, discouraged, frustrated, extremely inefficient and so exhausted that there is only numbness. The last time I found myself acting up this way was almost five years ago, when I was two years in my first job - when I basically had to shut the door to my office and told everyone to communicate with me via email so that I don't bite anyone's head off unwittingly. Problem here is that I now work in a cubicle.

I had a dream a couple of nights ago where I was trying to explain some journal entries regarding impairment of a debt instrument - in that dream, the figures I knew I had balanced prior to the presentation were missing - and the new numbers on the screen don't balance, and I woke up in a cold sweat.

And this morning, a colleague phoned me - and when her initials "AFS" appeared on the caller id screen, my first thought was - Available for Sale. My second thought was - that is the residual category if you can't classify as FVTPL, Loans & Receivables or HTM. My third thought was - shoot, where does changes in fair value go to for AFS and how does this affect hedge accounting? Only after that I wondered - who is AFS?

Yup, it is well past the time for me to finish up the programme and move on with my life.  Now all I have to do to survive the next two weeks and pass the darn exams.

I have a quiz tonight, on translation and remeasurement of transactions / financial statements from functional currency to presentation currency, and on measurement of financial instruments, and I am oddly unbothered. I really shouldn't - I failed my consolidation quiz, and I haven't been actively participating in class, so I really have a lot to make up for. Somehow, however, I just cannot be bothered - it is an odd sort of uncaring - a knowing you should care but just without the energy to care type of calm.

Foreign Currency Translation Reserve, termporal method, HTM, FVTPL, AFS - they are all mixed up, words words words ... sigh.

I keep telling myself, I need to focus, I need to focus - it is less than 25 days to the end of the course and I would never ever have to do a consolidation entry in my life again, or translate FS from FC to presentation currency, or prepare a cash flow statement etc etc etc - damn it, I don't even need to do well, I just need to pass.  I need to feel some motivational stress that will kick me in the butt and get me studying intensely!!!

One quiz on consolidation accounting - cost method and equity method followed by one presentation on efficient market hypothesis in a week when both my fellow associates are on leave at work.
 
Isn't there a hole somewhere I can crawl into and hide?

I am numb.

Learnt a few  interesting stuff at Corporate Reporting this few weeks, which raised some questions that I hope to have some time to look into later, and I thought I better write them down somewhere before they fly out of my mind -

1. Sale & Leaseback transactions

Apparently, sale & leaseback transactions are seen as financing deals rather than "real" sale of assets. Hence any gains arising from the sale by the seller must be recognised in the profit & loss account across the period of the lease. This gives rise to two possible issues:

(a) The seller may not be able to declare dividends out of the proceeds of the sale immediately, since the entire proceeds are not recognised in the P&L immediately. Hence, the net income of the seller will be correspondingly reduced. As the Companies Act require that dividends be declared out of "available profits", then to the seller is restricted from distributing the proceeds to its shareholders immediately. The professor seems to think that is the correct conclusion to draw. Must check Companies Act and case law to see if there is any definition in the Act of "available profits" - I seem to recall that there isn't and we follow accounting requirements to ascertain whether profits are available.

(b) From a tax angle, will the seller be able to "amortise" its gains from the sale in the same way it is required to restrict its dividends. In other words, if the sale results in a gain of S$1 million, with the accompanying lease to be over a period of 10 years, the gains should be recognised at S$100,000 per year. Will the tax be on S$100,000 per year (assuming gains are income in nature, another big issue in itself), or will the accounts be adjusted for tax purposes to show that the gain accrued in one year?

(c) While the gains must be recognised over the lifetime of the lease-back, where are the gains "parked" in the accounts? This one, I can check from the FRS. 

2. Percentage of Completion Method

In construction contracts, revenue is recognised on the percentage of completion method, irregardless of the actual payment arrangement between the contractor and the purchaser. Hence, in the construction of a shopping complex for say S$100 million by a contractor, revenue is recognised in accordance with the percentage completed. If 25% of the project is completed in year 1, the contractor will recognise S$25 million in revenue for that year, even though the purchaser who engaged the contractor has agreed to pay only S$12 million for the first year as progress payments. In other words, the cash flow position and the P&L position for the contractor may vary a great deal. Now the question is, when computing chargeable income for tax purposes, do I take the S$25 accrued income, or the S$12 million actual cash received? 

I seem to recall a case on this that my ex-colleagues handled a few years back. Must go and dig it out to read. It was reported and I think it went up to at least the High Court, if not the Court of Appeal.

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The questions below are not from class - but they popped out during some seminars I attended or during discussions with colleagues. Also must note down before I forget.

1. At a seminar, I was told that a testator cannot make a gift by will to trustees to hold on the terms of a trust made before the will but affected by an appointment made after the execution of the will and before the testator's case. Hence, if while the testator is still alive, the trustees of a trust make an appointment altering the terms of the trust, it would be necessary to make a new will. The speaker (who is a QC, so he should really know what he is talking about) cited 3 cases in support but did not elaborate. I got someone to extract those cases for me already. Must read. 

2. Previously, before amendments to the Income Tax Act, taxation of trust had a credit system. In other words, the trustees pay tax on the trust income, and when the trust income is distributed to the beneficiaries, the beneficiaries also suffer tax on the income but will get a credit for tax paid by the trustees. Kinda similar to the old section 44 regime for companies. This has been amended. However, my colleague who was looking at the (now-repealed)provisions said that in practice, the credit system will never be used because there will not be double taxation. Must check and reason it out myself. 

3. Characterisations of insurance payouts and trust distributions - when income is produced by investments held through an insurance structure or a trust structure, does the character of the income change when distributed either as insurance payouts or trust distributions to the beneficiaries? For example, if the trust holds some shares, and dividends are declared on the shares, will the nature of the income change from dividend income to trust income when distributed to the beneficiaries? 

Sigh ... so many questions, so little time ....

Exams are over, and I am slowly coming back to life. In my mind's eye, I have an image of a mole slowly, cautiously creeping out from its hole in the ground.... slowly gaining confidence that it is safe to venture out .... only to have this massive hammer coming out of nowhere to whack it hard on the head and send it scampering into its dark dank hole... groan... Ten days, I have ten days of freedom before my exam results come out, and my fate (whether I can continue on my course or flunk out) decided. And after that, if I pass, school starts again....

This has been a seriously rotten term. First of all, I fell sick for more than a month - have you ever heard of something like that? There is this lousy round of flu that goes around and around and around, and I have not even fully recovered from one bout of flu before I go down once again with awful hacking coughs. Then just when I was on the track to full recovery , I sprained my back (while bending down to put my laptop on my bed - I kid you not!) and was promptly immoblised for another couple of days. And got a scolding from the doctor for exhausting myself. Hello? If you are sick for a full month, you'll be pushing yourself to exhaustion too - do you know how much work (both school and office) can pile up when you are sick and working at quarter-capacity for a month? And with the economy booming away, it is no as if we are swatting flies in the office!

And I hate mathematics - I can do accounting (debit/credit credit/debit is fine), but I hate deriving values from goodness knows what (covariance? variance? standard deviation? beta? z-table? CAPM? WACC?) for goodness knows what, and my numbers always always go wrong somewhere somehow...  and I have two such modules this term. Good grief. The professors could be speaking ancient Hebrew and I'll understand about as much, perhaps more actually, since I actually like history. 

After all that self-pitying ranting, of course, it is my own fault. I should have known - since I am not good at mathematics, I should be focusing on practising and practising and practising. Instead I got so bored by the classes, I decided to stay back in the office and do my (overdue) work instead. Since I am already behind on my work, I should have slept earlier at night and come to work earlier, catch up on my work, instead of getting distracted in the evenings and spend hours reading NY Times, Huffington Post, Singapore Surf and other websites. I am such an idiot. You would think that all those years suffering through Chinese classes and Mathematics and Physics and Chemistry would have thought me something, but no - I merrily went on to make exactly the same mistakes I made back when I was a teenager. Stupid Stupid Stupid .... why do I never learn?

I have to say this though - never before had I ever been so bored by a subject and so petrified by it as well.

Ten days... groan....

I thought last term was bad, but at least the professors in Management Accounting and Economics speak English. For this term, if my Statistics and Corporate Finance professors tell me that the stuff they are showing on the Powerpoint slides are written in ancient Hebrew, I'll believe them.... whatever language those stuff are written in, it is not English!!!! Not Mandarin either! Or French (at least I'll recognise some words if they are in French!)

Worst of all - my classmates with Engineering backgrounds actually seem to understand them. I am so so screwed.

Just came back from my first class in Statistics. Sheez - why do I have a very bad feeling about this?

I completed my Economics presentation!!!

Just came back from Economics class, and am munching my French Fries while typing this. Gotta finish amending my trust deed before I can go home, and it is now four minutes to mid-night - what, just what had possessed me to even imagine that I can juggle work and studies (and museum guiding and a social life) for two years? *cover ears and screams*  Too late, I've mounted the tiger, now I just have to hang on for the ride and pray that I don't fall off!

( Stuff I learnt )