Sec. 10] INCOME ACCOUNTS 139 
$6147 being put into the safes of the company or deposited 
in bank. Even this last operation is a true outgo; for a 
cash drawer and a bank account are, as we have seen, always 
debited with what is put into them. There remains, there- 
fore, no final balance for the abstraction called the ‘“com- 
pany.” Just as, in the capital accounts, the company’s 
excess of assets over liabilities to other than stockholders 
constitutes the true liability to the stockholders themselves, 
so, in income accounts, any excess of income over outgo to 
other purposes than dividends paid to stockholders con- 
stitutes a true outgo for the benefit of those stockholders. 
§ 10 
We see, then, that the guiding principle for the construc- 
tion of the income account, either of real or fictitious per- 
sons, is simply to make a complete list of the services and 
disservices which flow from each and every item of the assets 
and liabilities. This simple relation between capital and 
income accounts is commonly obscured by the fact that it 
is not practically convenient to include in one’s capital ac- 
counts certain items of assets and liabilities, although their 
services and disservices are entered in the income account. 
This is true, in particular, of one’s own person, and such 
claims as are coupled with equal obligations, as leases and 
contracts with laborers. These are not and, from a purely 
practical point of view, ought not to be entered in the 
capital account; but much of the income and outgo from 
them, such as wages and rent, are entered in the income 
account. In respect of income accounts the use of one’s 
dwelling is omitted, as well as the unpaid-for services and 
disservices of human beings. A shopkeeper usually keeps 
a punctilious record of the work of his employees, but sel- 
dom any of his own personal work. If he owns the build- 
ing he occupies, he will not usually include its use in his 
accounts. In private life he seldom or never includes in 
his accounts the use of furniture.