U.S. Income Tax Accounting for Inventories

Abstract

This paper is a chapter from a forthcoming third edition of volume 5 of Boris I. Bittker & Lawrence Lokken, Federal Taxation of Income, Estates and Gifts. It is a general description and analysis of U.S. income tax rules on inventory accounting. It covers general topics, such as the role of inventories in income computations and the requirement that some businesses use inventories in computing taxable income. It also discusses more specialized topics, including several variations of the last-in-first-out (LIFO) method and the requirement that securities dealers use a mark-to-market system for their inventories.

Keywords: taxation, inventories

JEL Classification: K34