This book is a comparative study of the tax systems of Germany and Japan. It is a considerably expanded version of Iizuka's previous monograph, Veritable Bookkeeping Records, which was important enough a contribution to comparative tax studies that it was serialized and published in twenty-six parts over three years ('79-'82) in the Japan Society of Accounting's journal, Accounting.

The present volume includes a good deal of new, revised and updated material not included in the first monograph. Here Iizuka boldly puts forward counterarguments to the opinions of several hundred Japanese, European and North American scholars. One of his chief messages is that Japan needs to look to Germany, to the United States and to other EC nations for guidance in developing fairer accounting principles.