Accounting Aspects of Utility Rate Regulation

Lloyd J. Klein
1954 Law & Contemporary Problems  
The rate making process is characterized by a wide variety of accounting determinations. The final expressions of the relative inadequacy, or excessiveness, of present rate schedules and the reasonableness of the proposed new tariffs are deceptive in their simplicity. Behind the final answer lies the area of accounts-the sales, the capital expenditures, the depreciation accruals, the return, and the operating expenses. At times the treatment of accounts plays a singularly important part in rate
more » ... determinations. Often the process is mechanical. Always the accounting evidence is voluminous, if not ominous. While the emphasis on accounting in rate determinations differs widely from case to case and jurisdiction to jurisdiction, there are general areas in which issues invariably arise. A few of the most significant accounting problems are discussed hereinafter with the hope that the reader will be neither awed nor dismayed with the current status of these problems. RATE BAsE
doi:10.2307/1190218 fatcat:gqdoq5uwmzffblm63vok3pjdni