At Home and abroad;

              82 HASKINS & SELLS November
ACCOUNTANTS, if they would ad­vance
with business and with their
profession, eventually must acquire more
than a mere knowledge of accounting.
With the ever-increasing variety of serv­ices
he is called upon to render, the ac­countant
must develop a keen insight into
the other conditions surrounding account­ing,
in fact, into business management in
general. Many cases arise which are on the
border line between accountancy and law
and for which the accountant should have
at least a general knowledge of the law in
order to apply the proper accounting pro­cedure,
or to make a fair judgment of the
correctness of the accounts.
The growth of corporations national in
scope not only has complicated the account­ing
procedure required for recording the
numerous transactions, but has introduced
other problems which directly, or in­directly,
affect the public accountant and
his work. As corporations developed they
became the popular target for taxation
among the states because they afforded
the easiest avenue of taxation open to the
legislatures. Then, too, the general public
always has preferred indirect taxation, and
heartily approved of saddling the burden,
on the so-called big business interests.
Naturally enough, foreign corporations
offer the state legislatures an even more
popular object for taxation. By the very
instinct that prompted it to prefer indirect
taxes, the public will always favor taxation
of "outsiders" and especially "outside"
corporations. The very name "foreign
corporation" suggests to the general public
the idea that the corporation is an "out­sider"
which has come into the state to
exploit its resources and take them out of
the state, and consequently it should be
made to pay dearly. The legislatures have
not been slow to react to this sentiment
and now practically every state in the
Union has laws regulating foreign corpora­tions
"doing business" within the state.
In the language used by the state legis­latures
"foreign" corporations are those
organized in another state, while "alien"
corporations are those organized in a
foreign country. The name "foreign" is a
very poor one to apply to the class of cor­porations
to which it is applied, since it
carries the implication of an alien corpora­tion
to the minds of the public, and un­doubtedly
makes taxation of such corpora­tions
more popular.
There are two principal types of com­merce
within the United States—inter­state
and intrastate commerce. Inter­state
commerce is regulated by the Federal
government, and as long as business is
conducted along interstate lines the individ­ual
states have no power to regulate it.
However, when a business approaches the
border line between interstate and intra­state
commerce it is getting into the danger
zone, for if it oversteps the line it subjects
itself to the regulations, taxes, and penalties
of the state in which it is found to be
"doing business." Just what is "doing
business" in a foreign state is a matter of
interpretation, and no clear-cut definition
has been given thus far. Ordinarily, it in­volves
the thought of continuity of conduct
and requires more than a single act to con­stitute
doing business before the law. Yet
a number of cases could be cited in which
a single business transaction has been
sufficient to convict a corporation of doing
business within a state.
The mere selling of goods within a foreign
state by salesmen and shipping the goods
from outside the state do not come within
the definition of "doing business" in a state.
However, it was held in one state that if a
salesman sells goods which he carries, even
if they be only samples, that act constitutes
doing business within the state in behalf
At Home and Abroad