normally between nations

more likely than trade balance in this contect. (Schäfer, Wirtschaftswörterbuch)

end (which year?) whereas the "jeweiligen" of Handelsbilanz II seems to refer to a year in course.

A "Handelsbilanz" is a commercial balance sheet (as opposed to a "Steuerbilanz," or tax balance sheet. For more on commercial balance sheets as opposed to tax balance sheets, check out the links provided below. Applied to a U.S. context, a tax balance sheet would be the one prepared for tax purposes, while the commercial balance sheet would be prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles (U.S. GAAP).

As far as the difference between the two commercial balance sheets mentioned in your excerpt, one appears to take the annual financial statements of all of the foreign subsidiaries into account, while the other also includes the balance sheet and valuation principles pertinent to the principal company of the group.

First of all in the US, we refer to Balance Sheets as Balance Sheets. There is no such term (in Annul reports) as a Commercial Balance Sheet or Tax balance Sheet.

All company's that have subsidiaries, will make up to sets of financial statements. One set is the set for the entire group (parent company) which includes the numbers of all its subsidiaries, the second set are the individual financial statements of each subsdiary. In this case they label the financials as I and II. MOst of the time you will see all of them listed in the Annual Report for example COmpany X owns Company Y, so X will have statements that include Y and statements only for Y.

Financial Statements refer to the statements that include Balance Sheet and Income Statement and usually also Cashflow statement.

Hope this helps

The answer that said this is right. I have on my desk an annual report of Cognos, including the various fifancial statements mentioned and one more. A year or 2 ago, the US adopted new guidelines about reporting for companies with subsidiaries. It makes sense that the subsidiaries in the various countries have to report their business results as required by their countries. The entire multinational corporation has, as it says, its own way of accounting. By the way, you might find the following definitions useful:
Affiliated Company: A company with less than 50% of its stock owned by another corporation, or one whose stock, with that of another corporation, is owned by the same controlling interests.
Associated Company: A company owned jointly by two or more other companies.
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