My colleagues and I, all qualified accountants, have heated discussion over something as simple as the definition of a debit or a credit. Debits can be records of either expenses or assets. The former counts against income in the statement of profit and loss. The latter is treated as a continuing resource in a balance sheet. It is sometimes gradually allocated (expensed) against income in subsequent years, sometimes not. A fundamental problem with the financial reporting of WorldCom, for example, was that huge quantities of expenses were misallocated in the accounts as assets. Thus, by reducing expenditures, profit appeared to be increased. The effect of this on stock values and, thereby, on executive rewards are secondary and tertiary outcomes not caused directly by the accountancy. Another example concerns interest on loans that may have been raised to finance capital investment, while a large asset is under construction, often for several years. Some argue that the interest should be accounted for as part of the capital cost until the asset is operational. Others claim that because the interest is an expense, it should be charged against that year's profits. Yet, the current year's income includes none of the income generated by the new asset, so profit is under-stated. And what if a hydro- electric power station starts to operate three of its ten turbines while still under construction? How does one allocate what costs, as expenses or assets, in such cases? Interestingly, the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) require that "interest during construction" be capitalized, that is included in the cost of the asset. The International Accounting Standards (IAS) prefer expensing but allow capitalization. From an economic viewpoint, both are wrong - or only partially right! The accountancy profession should get together to establish common practices for comparing companies, limiting the scope for judgment. Accountants used to make the rules in the USA and elsewhere until the business community demanded input from other professionals, to provide a more "balanced" view. This led to the establishment of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), with non-accountants as members. The GAAP has been tempered by political and business lobbying. Moreover, accounting rules for taxation purposes and applied to companies quoted on stock exchanges are not always consistent with the GAAP. Accountants who do not follow the rules are disciplined.