Source: http://www.vg247.com/2012/04/10/why-sonys-4-billion-loss-isnt-the-disaster-it-seems/
That’s a lot of money. Except that I want to sound the first note of caution – it’s actually not a lot of money. Yes, £4 billion would buy you a fair few fish suppers, but I say “it’s not a lot of money” because the reality is that it never actually existed. Sony didn’t have four billion quid and then lose it. The accounting behind this figure is a bit more complex.
Sony had what are called “deferred tax assets” in the United States. These are essentially agreements with the US government which would allow the company to enjoy tax credits on its future income. Because of how corporate accounting works, they’re buried somewhere in Sony’s labyrinthine balance sheet as a great big asset – even though they don’t actually exist yet, since they’re just a promise to give the firm tax credits at some point in the future. For various reasons (largely, I believe, the fact that the company isn’t making enough money to actually use those credits), they’re no longer usable, so they have to be taken off the balance sheet – and that means the accountants have to register them as a “loss”, since they’re money (well, “not-money”) disappearing off Sony’s books.
It's long read so just read the whole thing in the link I provided.
http://www.vg247.com/2012/04/10/why-sonys-4-billion-loss-isnt-the-disaster-it-seems/
