Suppose the company sells its Basic Casting Division Products to retailers at market prices so the allocation base choice has no bearing on selling prices. However, assume all of its Specialty Casting Division products are sold to government contractors on cost plus $25\%$ contracts. The government contractors allow the company to use four options to allocate overhead to products. The options are direct labor hours, machine hours, total direct material costs, or total direct labor costs. Given this flexibility, and to maximize total company profits, which allocation base should be used to allocate overhead costs?

Group of answer choices

Machine hours

Total direct labor costs

Direct labor hours

Total direct material costs