January 2020 CPI Release Highlights

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released January 2020 Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) today. The All commodities index increased by 0.4% over the last month & has increased 2.5% over the last year on a seasonally unadjusted basis. All items less food and energy increased by .04% between December ’19 – January 2020 & rose […]

Clarifying How LIFO Reserve Changes are Calculated

For companies on LIFO, the LIFO reserve represents the difference between their ending inventory balance at FIFO or average cost (commonly referred to as “current year cost) vs. LIFO cost (for dollar-value LIFO calculations, a non-LIFO costing method must be used to track inventory costs throughout the year in order to determine the “pre-LIFO” ending […]

Understanding Price Changes for Producer Price Indexes, Imports & Exports

When providing LIFO Election Benefit Analysis results to companies looking to determine the potential benefits of LIFO, we use Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to determine the historical inflation the most predominant items within a businesses’ product mix. When a company’s internal price changes are significantly different […]

The Industries Providing The Best LIFO Benefits For The 2019 Year End

What’s Changed Since our Top 50 List was Published in October? In October, we released a Top 50 LIFO candidates list that used inflation rates for the 9 months ended September 2019. As of last Wednesday, December 2019 Producer Price Indexes (PPI) were published and the books have now been closed on inflation rates for […]

What you Need to Know about Dual Indexes

Most accounting systems track inventory costs using FIFO or moving average cost. The same can be said for companies on LIFO, but adjustments are obviously required to convert FIFO or average cost to LIFO. The most widely-used and accepted approach to make a link-chain LIFO calculation is what one could call a single index method. […]

LIFO-PRO’s Top 50 LIFO Candidates of 2019

LIFO-PRO releases this list of the top 50 LIFO candidates annually in October following the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releasing September Producer Price Indexes (PPI). This allows for the best LIFO candidates to be identified in advance keeping in mind that considering a LIFO election typically requires prior planning and buy in from the […]

September 2019 PPI Release Highlights

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released September 2019 Producer Price Indexes (PPI) today.   The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released September 2019 Producer Price Indexes (PPI) today. The All commodities index declined by 0.6% over the last month & has decreased by 2.7% over the last year on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Meats […]

August 2019 CPI Release Highlights

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released August 2019 Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) today. The all items category was unchanged over the last month & rose by 1.7% over the last year while All items less food and energy increased 0.2% from July – August ’19 and rose by 2.4% from August ’18 – ’19. […]

July ’19 CPI Release Highlights

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released July 2019 Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) today. The all items category rose 0.2% over the last month & rose by 1.8% over the last year while All items less food and energy increased 0.1% from June – July ’19 and rose by 2.2% from July ’18 – ’19. […]

Why the Double-extension LIFO Index Calculation Method is Unreliable

The double-extension method does not reliably measure the amount of price inflation during a year and should not be considered a permissible LIFO method. The double-extension method has been considered by the IRS to be the preferred method to make dollar-value method LIFO index calculations for the almost 60 years that the dollar-value LIFO method […]

June ’19 CPI Release Highlights

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released June 2019 Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) today. The all items category was unchanged over the last month & rose by 1.6% over the last year while All items less food and energy increased 0.2% from May – June 19 and rose by 2.1% from May ’18 – ’19. […]

June 2019 PPI Release Highlights

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released June 2019 Producer Price Indexes (PPI) today. The All commodities index declined by 0.6% over the last month & decreased by 1.9% over the last year on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Leading the decreases was refined petroleum with a 7.3% decline from May – June 2019 and a […]