carry-forward

Thân thiện

The accountant reviews the carry-forward from last year's financial statement.

Definition

Noun: 1. Accounting term for accumulated, undistributed profits: "Carry-forward" refers specifically to the total amount of a corporation's net income that has been retained and not distributed to shareholders as dividends or allocated to specific reserves. It represents profits kept within the company to fund future operations, growth, or investments.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • The company's strong financial position is partly due to a significant carry-forward from previous profitable years.
  • The board decided to add this year's net income to the carry-forward rather than issue a special dividend.

Advanced Usage

• "To carry forward" (verb phrase): In accounting, this is the action of transferring a balance from the end of one accounting period to the beginning of the next. The noun "carry-forward" is the resulting balance from this action.
  • The loss was carried forward to offset future taxable income. (Here, "carried forward" is the verb phrase.)
  • The tax loss carry-forward provided a benefit for five subsequent years. (Here, "carry-forward" is the noun, modified by "tax loss".)

Variants and Related Words

• Retained earnings: A direct synonym and more common term in financial statements for "carry-forward".
• Accumulated profits: Another common synonym.
• Earnings surplus: A related term emphasizing the excess of earnings.
• Carry-over (noun): Can be used interchangeably with "carry-forward" in some accounting contexts, especially for tax purposes (e.g., tax loss carry-over).

Synonyms

• Retained earnings
• Accumulated profits
• Ploughed-back profits (UK) / Plowed-back profits (US)
• Earned surplus

Important Note on Usage

"Carry-forward" is a specialized term used primarily in accounting, finance, and corporate law. In everyday business English, "retained earnings" is the most frequent and preferred term. The term is often hyphenated when used as a noun, as in "a loss carry-forward," but may appear as two words ("carry forward") when used as a verb phrase.

Học thuật

Noun

1. the accumulated and undivided profits of a corporation after provision has been made for dividends and reserves

Từ đồng nghĩa

• carry-over