Comparing Income Statements for One Year
What will Stassen’s operating income be if it uses variable costing or absorption costing?
The differences between these methods are apparent in Exhibit 9-1. Panel A shows the
variable costing income statement and Panel B the absorption-costing income statement
for Stassen’s telescope product line for 2012. The variable-costing income statement uses
the contribution-margin format introduced in Chapter 3. The absorption-costing income
statement uses the gross-margin format introduced in Chapter 2. Why these differences
in format? The distinction between variable costs and fixed costs is central to variable