Treatment of interest and financial charges

There is controversy whether
financial charges, specially interest, should be included in the costs or not. The following
arguments are generally advanced in favour of interest to be included in overhead
expenses.
(1) Computation of total cost is impossible unless interest is taken into account. Interest
is an element of cost and therefore, should be included in cost. This is specially true
in business where raw materials in different stages can be used. Thus a timber
merchant, if he buys standing trees and seasons the timber himself, would incur a
large amount of costs as interest. Another merchant who buys his timber already
seasoned would automatically have to pay a higher price; obviously, this price
includes interest.