All FASB articles – Page 20
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Article
Taxing Times Ahead on Revenue Standard
Among the many issues companies must address as they adopt the new revenue recognition standard, tax consequences are gaining more attention. The IRS is seeking comment on how burdensome tax reporting might become, and the standard’s fundamental shift in recognizing revenue could make the burden quite heavy. “There’s a lot ...
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Blog
FASB Proposes Fixes to Narrow Hedge Accounting Issues
FASB is proposing some changes to hedge accounting rules to help companies apply the rules consistently. One proposed update would try to resolve varied approaches around a four-step decision sequence to determine whether certain instruments should be treated as embedded derivatives; another addresses questions about whether a change in counterparty ...
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Blog
Deadline Nears to Weigh in on New Operating Activities Presentation
Image: FASB has issued three sets of frequently asked questions about its proposal to alter the presentation of financial statements for not-for-profits. The proposal would “dramatically change” several areas of reporting, especially around operating activities, says Beth Paul, a partner with PwC. “Given FASB has similar projects on the agenda ...
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Blog
FASB Adopts Fixes to Employee Benefit Accounting
FASB has finalized its accounting standards update with a three-part fix to simplify accounting for employee benefit plans. The first part allows companies to measure the value of fully benefit-responsive investment contracts at the contract value rather than fair value; part two cuts disclosure requirements for certain individual investments; and ...
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Blog
FASB Finalizes Simpler Way to Measure Some Inventory
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 ...
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Blog
IASB Follows Suit on Deferring Revenue Recognition One Year
Image: The International Accounting Standards Board has decided to delay the effective date of its revenue recognition standard by one year, just as FASB pushed out its required implementation date to 2018. IASB is delaying the standard because it is working on clarifications to help implementation and because it “keeps ...
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Blog
FASB Nears Proposal on Hedge Accounting
After several years of relative inaction on hedge accounting, the Financial Accounting Standards Board is near issuing a proposed update to accounting standards that would have a big effect on what would qualify for hedge accounting and how the accounting would be explained in financial statements. According to PwC, “[t]he ...
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Blog
FASB Approves One-Year Deferral for Revenue Recognition
As long expected, FASB has approved a one-year deferral of the effective date of the new standard on revenue recognition, pushing the adoption requirement out to 2018. The board will also allow companies to adopt the standard as of the original effective date, January 2017, if they are inclined to ...
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Article
A Debt Is Owed, No Matter How You Want to Account for It
Image: Even the simplest accounting issues, it seems, can be anything but simple. Rulemakers were reminded of that recently when they tried to simplify how companies account for the cost of securing debt. “Most people get confused by it,” says Diana Gilbert of RoseRyan. “People get wrapped around the axle ...
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Blog
FASB, IASB Work Out Guidance on Gross vs. Net
FASB and IASB have reached tentative decisions on how to address questions in the new revenue standard around when to report revenue on a gross versus net basis. While the boards are moving in different directions of how they will amend their respective guidance, FASB says the amendments to each ...
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Blog
SEC Weighs In on New Debt Cost Presentation Guidance
The SEC is signaling a solution to companies struggling with how to reflect certain debt issuance costs under new guidance from the Financial Accounting Standards Board. During a recent meeting, the Commission acknowledged that FASB’s update doesn’t provide guidance on costs related to debt arrangements. Details inside.
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Blog
Companies Pause on New Discontinued Operations Rule
Image: Companies are hitting bumps as they attempt to apply FASB’s new approach to defining discontinued operations. The standard says a discontinued operation is a major strategic shift and has a major impact on the entity, although it doesn’t provide guidance on how to define those terms, says Beth Paul, ...
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Article
Financial Compliance Teams Await Tech Help on Revenue Rule
Improved technology for financial systems will be critical as Corporate America moves to implement the impending new revenue recognition standard. That new tech, however, is slow-rolling its way to your data center, since the standard’s final guidance is still incomplete. “We knew going in we were not playing on a ...
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Article
ITT Complaint Shows Off-Balance-Sheet Woes Aren’t Off-Stage Yet
An SEC lawsuit against ITT Educational Services could shape up to be another textbook case of what goes wrong when companies try to deal with problematic accounting away from the eye of investors. The problem this time: off-balance sheet vehicles that masked ITT’s defaulting student loans. Where were the auditors? ...
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Blog
Why Simplification Isn’t Simple
Simplicity in accounting is always a great idea, yet complexity always seems to be intruding into reality. This week, Compliance Week columnist Scott Taub tries to deconstruct why complexity endures, and why we may even see it creep into the ostensibly simplified new rule for revenue recognition. “Despite 10 years ...
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Blog
FASB Proposes Simplification to M&A Accounting
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is proposing a change to the rules around how to adjust provisional amounts recorded at the time of a transaction to simplify the accounting for business combinations. FASB says stakeholders say current rules are costly and complicated and don’t significantly improve the information available to ...
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Blog
Revenue Recognition Implementation Brings Big Challenges
Companies in the vanguard of implementing the new revenue recognition standard are finding it a daunting task requiring major planning and coordination. At the Compliance Week 2015 conference, Bavan Holloway, vice president of corporate audit at Boeing, said companies need to have a strong change management process in place. “It’s ...
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Blog
FASB Proposes Changes to Revenue Standard
FASB has issued proposed revisions to the revenue recognition standard intended to head off the potential for varied interpretation of the standard and to simplify and reduce the cost of compliance in some areas. The board has focused the amendments on identifying performance obligations and accounting for revenue arising from ...
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Blog
Investors Protest Private Company Standards
Efforts on the part of standard-setters to wring some complexity out of financial reporting might be helpful to preparers of financial statements, but investors are starting to pipe up in protest.
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Blog
SEC Chief Accountant Retreats From IFRS Filing Idea
Image: SEC chief accountant James Schnurr is distancing himself from an idea he floated last year that the Commission might allow U.S. companies an option to report under International Financial Reporting Standards. Schnurr says staff outreach revealed “little support” for that idea, essentially leaving convergence to standard setters. Details inside.