Meaning of Treasury Stock and Its Accounting Treatment

Treasury Stock

Treasury stock is the stock issued by the company and may later be reacquired by the company from its shareholders.

The company may retire or cancel these stocks. The reacquired stock which is not retired by the company is called “treasury stock”.

Treasury stock is not an asset for the company. A company creates its assets by holding them in itself.

There are various reasons a corporation may reacquire the stocks, such as; using treasury stocks to reissue the shares to officers and employees as a bonus and stock compensation plan (a.k.a. Employees Stock Option Plan), and to reduce the numbers of shares and thereby increase earnings per shares (EPS).

Accounting for Treasury Stocks

The purchase of treasury stocks is accounted for in the books of account by the cost method. Under the cost method, the company records the treasury stocks in the books of account by increasing (debit) the treasury stock by the price paid to reacquire the shares.

Treasury stock Account decreases by the same amount when the company later sell the shares. At the time of repurchase, record the entire amount of purchase in the treasury books of account.

When treasury stocks are sold, offset the sale price against the treasury stocks account, and credit any sales exceeding the repurchase the additional paid-in the capital account.

If the sale price is lesser than the repurchase cost, charge the differential amount to any additional paid-in capital remaining from prior treasury stock transactions and any residual amount of retained earnings if there is no remaining balance in additional paid- in the capital account.

For an example:-

(a) Raymond Company purchased stock 3000 shares of its $50 par value common stock $180,000 cash on July 1. It accepts to hold the shares until they are resold.

(b) Later on, the company decides to resell the shares at $70 per share

Journalise entry is as follows:-

1 Julu	Treasury stock	180,000
	To  Cash A/c		180,000
	(recording the purchases of 3000 shares at $60 per share)

1. B) Sell repurchased shares at $ 70 per share

July 1	Cash	210,000
	To Additional Paid-in Capital		30,000
	To Treasury Stock		180,000
	(Being 3000 treasury stock sold at $70 per share.)