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Accounting & Auditing Update

The "Accounting & Auditing Update" is written by Tammy Whitehouse, a veteran business writer who has been a regular contributor to Compliance Week since 2005. Her work has also appeared in industry journals and periodicals including Journal of Business Strategy, Strategy & Leadership, Compensation & Benefits Review, Inc, Buyside, and myriad others. Whitehouse welcomes questions and comments from readers; she can be reached via e-mail at twhitehouse@complianceweek.com.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
Public Companies Could Win Exception on Intangible Assets
Tammy Whitehouse | January 9, 2015
FASB is taking a fresh look at a method to account for intangible assets it just permitted for private companies, to see whether the rule should be granted to public companies as well. The new method allows private companies to bypass the current GAAP requirement to recognize separately from goodwill any customer-related intangible assets that cannot be sold or licensed independently from other assets or non-competition agreements.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB Jettisons Extraordinary Items From Financial Statements
Tammy Whitehouse | January 13, 2015
In its quest to simplify accounting standards, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has adopted a new provision in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that spares companies the requirement to display extraordinary and unusual items in financial statements. FASB said stakeholders had expressed concerns that companies often faced uncertainty over when to consider an item unusual.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB Proposes Simplifications to Income Tax Accounting
Tammy Whitehouse | January 27, 2015
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued two proposed accounting standard updates to simplify the accounting for income taxes. One would simplify accounting for the tax effects of intra-entity asset transfers, while the other focuses on the classification of deferred tax assets and liabilities that are carried on the balance sheet. FASB says the updates would align U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles with International Financial Reporting Standards. More inside.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB Finalizes Simpler Way to Measure Some Inventory
Tammy Whitehouse | July 29, 2015
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has finished its simplification of the accounting requirements around measuring inventory, although the simplification is not as broad-based as first intended. The update says when performing subsequent measurements of inventory under either the first-in, first-out, or the average costs methods, companies should measure inventory at cost or net realizable value, whichever is lower. Details inside.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
Companies get new rules to govern cash flow classification
Tammy Whitehouse | August 29, 2016
FASB has approved a new Accounting Standards Update meant to clear up inconsistencies in how companies classify cash payments and receipts on the cash flow statement. Tammy Whitehouse has more.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB offers more narrow corrections to new revenue rule
Tammy Whitehouse | September 20, 2016
FASB has issued another proposed update to the massive new standard on revenue recognition to address more technical corrections and upgrades on a handful of narrow issues. Tammy Whitehouse has more.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB pushes change to accounting for long-duration insurance
Tammy Whitehouse | October 7, 2016
FASB has proposed a big change in accounting for insurance companies that deal in long-duration contracts like life insurance, annuities, disability, and long-term care. Tammy Whitehouse reports.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
Bankers expect big accounting change under CECL model
Tammy Whitehouse | October 11, 2016
Bankers expect CECL, a new rule on how to reflect credit losses in financial statements, to produce big accounting changes. According to Tammy Whitehouse, some say it is the biggest change ever.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB’s new consolidation guidance lays off indirect interests
Tammy Whitehouse | November 1, 2016
FASB’s new consolidation guidance is meant to help companies better determine whether a particular entity should be consolidated to financial statements. More from Tammy Whitehouse.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB issues new restricted cash rule, proposal on stock comp
Tammy Whitehouse | November 21, 2016
FASB has published a new rule to combat diversity in restricted cash accounting and a new proposal to clarify the rules around stock compensation modifications.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB kills burdensome goodwill impairment test
Tammy Whitehouse | January 27, 2017
FASB has finalized its action to eliminate “step two” from goodwill impairment testing, relieving public companies of the costly, complex fair-value exercise. More from Tammy Whitehouse.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB updates accounting for certain benefit plans
Tammy Whitehouse | March 1, 2017
Companies with employee benefit plans held in master trusts have some new accounting rules to learn and observe, courtesy of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB shortens write-down period for some debt securities
Tammy Whitehouse | March 31, 2017
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has settled on a new way for companies to amortize, or write down the value, of certain debt securities.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB addresses lease accounting transition questions
Tammy Whitehouse | May 12, 2017
Facing questions about how to transition to the new lease accounting requirements in 2019, FASB recently explained what it had in mind when it issued its guidance.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB clarifies stock compensation, service agreement accounting
Tammy Whitehouse | May 16, 2017
In a pair of updates to accounting standards, the FASB is looking to shore up differences in how companies account for stock compensation and service concession arrangements.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB proposes new rules on contributions, grants
Tammy Whitehouse | August 11, 2017
Companies may soon have some new instructions to follow in deciding how to account for various types of grants and contributions.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB finalizes new approach to hedge accounting
Tammy Whitehouse | August 28, 2017
The FASB has issued its long-awaited standard to simplify hedge accounting, allowing companies to adopt the new approach almost immediately if they choose.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB proposes tweaks to lease accounting rules
Tammy Whitehouse | September 26, 2017
Just as new rules on revenue recognition required some tweaking as companies prepared to implement them, so apparently do the new rules on lease accounting.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB proposes little fixes to big rules on financial instruments, leases
Tammy Whitehouse | October 3, 2017
FASB is proposing new clarifications to its previously issued standards on the recognition and measurement of financial instruments and on leases.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
Pension cost rule may give new reason to de-risk plans
Tammy Whitehouse | October 23, 2017
A new accounting rule on pension cost presentation will hammer another nail in the coffin of defined benefit pension plans as a form of compensation.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB tees up talk on controversial materiality proposal
Tammy Whitehouse | November 6, 2017
The Financial Accounting Standards Board plans at its next public meeting to discuss its controversial proposal to alter the GAAP concept of materiality.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
Migration to simpler goodwill test will be slow, data says
Tammy Whitehouse | November 20, 2017
FASB may have given companies a simpler way to determine whether goodwill must be marked down, but not all public companies are rushing to adopt it.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB agrees to simplifications to ease into new lease rule
Tammy Whitehouse | December 4, 2017
The lease accounting standard is about to get easier to adopt when it takes effect in 2019, but that doesn’t mean companies should slow their preparations.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB proposes lease accounting transition relief
Tammy Whitehouse | January 8, 2018
FASB proposes a change to the new lease accounting standard taking effect in 2019 that promises to ease the implementation.
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Accounting & Auditing Update Blog
FASB plans to change income classification under tax law
Tammy Whitehouse | January 11, 2018
The FASB has decided it will fast-track a change to accounting rules to allow reclassification of the income tax effects of the recent tax reform law.
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