Last year the Emerging Issues Task Force at the Financial Accounting Standars Board turned 30. Consistent with prior practice, FASB has been conducting a 10-year review of the EITF. Such reviews were done in 1995 and 2005, and resulted in various changes intended to improve the EITF’s processes and overall effectiveness. FASB is taking another turn at the wheel this year.
The EITF was established in 1984 to assist FASB in the timely identification, discussion, and resolution of accounting and financial issues encountered in practice, including those resulting from new types of transactions and arrangements as well as issues of diversity in practice. In this way, the EITF has become an important part of U.S. accounting standard setting. Indeed, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the EITF has clearly been a positive part of accounting standard setting, as EITF-like bodies have subsequently been created by other major national standard setters and by the International Accounting Standards Board in the form of the IFRS Interpretations Committee (IFRIC).
