“Once a company allocates corporate costs to divisions, these costs should not be reallocated to the indirect-cost pools of the division.” Do you agree? Explain

Answer:

Disagree. If corporate costs allocated to a division can be reallocated to the indirect cost pools of the division on the basis of a logical cause-and-effect relationship, then it is in fact preferable to do so—this will result in fewer division indirect cost pools and a more cost-effective cost allocation system. This reallocation of allocated corporate costs should only be done if the allocation base used for each division indirect cost pool has the same cause-and-effect relationship with every cost in that indirect cost pool, including the reallocated corporate cost. Note that we observe such a situation with corporate human resource management (CHRM) costs in the case of CAI, Inc., described in the chapter—these allocated corporate costs are included in each division’s five indirect cost pools. (On the other hand, allocated corporate treasury cost pools are kept in a separate cost pool and are allocated on a different cost-allocation base than the other division cost pools.)