...Courtney Intermediate Accounting 3 October 20th, 2015 FASB Comment Letter On May 13th, 2015 FASB issued Accounting Standards Update, Simplifying the Measurement of Inventory. The Board came to the decision of abandoning inventory measured using the LIFO method, which is using last-in, first-out. They also decided on excluding the retail inventory methods. The Board also requires inventory to be measured at net realizable value and at the lower of cost. They believe that the result will cause a reporting entity to not be required to consider replacement costs. There will not be additional disclosures required in the periods after the amendments. The amendments will be applied in the annual reporting periods after December 15th, 2016 with interim reporting periods starting after December 15th, 2017. If LIFO is used for tax purposes, it must also be used for financial reporting of a company. This can cause trouble for certain companies. When prices rise, companies using LIFO minimize their tax liability, but the companies minimize their net income as well, in turn causing failure of the companies to meet the minimum level of profitability under a loan or meet what analysts have forecasted for the company. LIFO is also not used in a good portion of foreign jurisdictions. This limits the ability to expand abroad for companies valuing inventory using LIFO. If a company chose to expand internationally, they would have to keep two sets of inventory records; one for...
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...online 7 June 2012 We investigate the effect of standard setters in standard setting. We examine how certain professional and political characteristics of FASB members and SEC commissioners predict the accounting ‘‘reliability’’ and ‘‘relevance’’ of proposed standards. Notably, we find FASB members with backgrounds in financial services are more likely to propose standards that decrease ‘‘reliability’’ and increase ‘‘relevance,’’ partly due to their tendency to propose fair-value methods. We find opposite results for FASB members affiliated with the Democratic Party, although only when excluding financialservices background as an independent variable. Jackknife procedures show that results are robust to omitting any individual standard setter. & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: D72 D78 G18 K22 L51 M41 Keywords: Accounting FASB Politics Relevance Reliability Standard setting 1. Introduction As the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) closes in on four decades, the role of its standards in shaping U.S. and international corporate reporting is widely acknowledged. An empirical literature on the political economy of FASB standard setting has emerged over that period to explore the origins of accounting standards largely through an analysis of constituent comment-letter lobbying (e.g., Watts and Zimmerman, 1978). But such...
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...Proposed Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts Issued: March 11, 2010 Comments Due: July 16, 2010 Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting: The Reporting Entity This Exposure Draft of a proposed Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts is issued by the Board for public comment. Written comments should be addressed to: Technical Director File Reference No. 1770-100 Responses from interested parties wishing to comment on the Exposure Draft must be received in writing by July 16, 2010. Interested parties should submit their comments by email to director@fasb.org, File Reference No. 1770-100. Those without email may send their comments to the “Technical Director, File Reference No. 1770-100, FASB, 401 Merritt 7, PO Box 5116, Norwalk, CT 06856-5116.” Do not send responses by fax. Please send only one comment letter to either the FASB or the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which is also requesting comments on this jointly issued Exposure Draft. The FASB and the IASB will share and consider jointly all comment letters received. Comments are most helpful if they: a. b. c. Indicate the specific paragraph or paragraphs to which the comments relate Contain a clear rationale Include any alternative the Boards should consider. All comments received constitute part of the FASB’s public file. The FASB will make all comments publicly available by posting them to its website and by making them available in its public reference room in Norwalk, Connecticut. An...
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...be detrimental to the interests of other affected parties. And, the argument goes, accounting standard setters must take into consideration these allegedly detrimental consequences when deciding on accounting questions. 2. What economic consequences arguments are used in this letter? A. The economic consequences arguments that are used in this letter is the considerations of the wide range of concerns that have been expressed about the derivatives and hedging proposal, including concerns related to the potential impact on the capital markets, the weakening of companies’ ability to manage risk and others. The letter is suggesting for fairness and transparency with regard to the proposal of FASB and be open for public debate and comments as this is important in businesses, the customer’s and the economy as a whole. 3. What do you believe is the main point of the letter? A. The main point of the letter is to postpone the issuance of the newest approach that is about to finalized or issue by the FASB without any further study or consultation from the public. The FASB has developed, over the last few weeks, a new approach that it proposes to adopt as a final standard. The FASB may not have adequately considered the wide range of concerns that have been expressed about the derivatives and...
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...IFRS in the United States: If, When and How Donna L. Street s described by Erchinger (2012), for decades various United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairs and Chief Accountants have expressed support for the development of one set of globally accepted accounting standards. Since the formation of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in 2001, SEC leaders have repeatedly indicated that the logical choice for globally accepted standards is the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) issued by the IASB. However, in line with other large economies, such as Japan, India and China, as of June 2012 the US had not adopted IFRS.1 This paper explores when and how, and indeed if, IFRS will become the basis for the financial reporting of domestic SEC registrants in the US. Readers are encouraged to first review Erchinger’s (2012) history of the SEC’s consideration of IFRS in the US included in this forum and especially Table 1 of this article, which provides a chronology of SEC releases regarding incorporation of IFRS into the US financial reporting model. This paper complements Erchinger’s by assessing approaches recently explored by the SEC for incorporating IFRS into the US financial reporting model. A decision can lead to correct or incorrect action. However, as articulated by many SEC constituents, uncertainty associated with repeated delays and hence ‘no decision’ by the SEC is clearly not in the best interest of investors and other financial...
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...| FASB Project | ACCT 495-6260 | | Mallory Taylor | 4/26/2013 | | U.S. GAAP and IFRS: History of Convergence The business environment today is one of a truly global perspective. There are few businesses left in this world that does not conduct business on an international basis. The need for a universal accounting system is a direct result of the magnitude of international business. Investors, managers, CEOs, and virtually all stakeholders need to understand the accounting information of the other businesses they interact with, regardless of the country or region of the world that business is located. “The effort to join the international financial community in a single set of standards has been in motion for over 40 years. The International Accounting standards Committee was formed in 1973. This committee evolved into the International accounting Standards Board (IASB) in 2001. International security regulators supported accounting regulators in the call for universal standards” (Thomas, 2009, p. 369). “The regulators in the U.S. have been slow to join the efforts for global convergence. In 2002, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which issues U.S. GAAP, and the International Accounting Standards Board entered into the Norwalk Agreement. This agreement acknowledges their commitment to high quality accounting standards for use domestically and across borders. This agreement aims to remove the differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS standards...
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...reading the exposure draft and the first ten comment letters from the FASB website, I argued that the exposure draft should be adopted. Before the exposure draft were issued, FASB received some respondents criticized the original dislosure requirements of loss contingencies: “a.The initial disclosure of specific information about a loss contingency often does not occur until a material accrual is recognized for that loss contingency, sometimes taking investors by surprise. b. The at least reasonably possible threshold for disclosing loss contingencies has not resulted in the disclosure of the full population of an entity’s existing loss contingencies that would be of interest to financial statement users. c. The amounts recognized in the financial statements related to loss contingencies are not transparent to users. In order to improve the disclosures about certain loss contingencies, such change of standards is necessary.” In response to this concern, the Board made two roundable discussions and got some feedback from respondents and finally issued an exposure draft stating that “An entity shall disclose qualitative and quantitative information about loss contingencies to enable financial statement users to understand all of the following: a. The nature of the loss contingencies. b.Their potential magnitude. c.Their potential timeing (if known).” It is reasonable the Board revised some proposal in insponse to the comment letters from respondents. For example, respondents argued...
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..."convergence" phases and a final "endorsement" phase. Convergence Phase I — Would somehow complete the few surviving MoU convergence projects by the end of this year, but even those have since been shot full of enough holes to push the timeline out by at least another year. The SEC will not acknowledge this, but everyone pretty much agrees that the decade-long effort to converge U. S. GAAP and IFRS has been marked by many more failures than successes. Convergence Phases II and III — Would take an additional 5 to 7 years and require the FASB to formulate plans for merging active IFRS projects into U. S. GAAP. If FASB-style "due process" can't get it all done, someone is supposed to be able to figure out a way to pick up all the pieces. Endorsement — Simple math combined with the most obvious lessons learned from recent history leads to the inescapable conclusion that the "endorsement" phase can't even begin for at least another decade. At that point, the FASB is supposed to...
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...Recognition.com Contributor ABSTRACT On May 28, 2004, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standard Board (FASB) issued converged guidance on recognizing revenue in contracts with customers. The new guidance is a major achievement in the Boards’ joint efforts to make both U.S.GAAP and IFRS improved and making them as close as possible. The new revenue recognition standard overcomes inconsistencies regardless of industry and geography, provides more useful information for users, and simplifies the preparation of financial statement. The paper begins with the background of the joint project on the revenue recognition. The paper further discuss the core principle of the revenue recognition and new five steps revenue recognition model. Additionally, highlighting the contracts with multiple element and providing the examples to illustrate application. The paper also discusses the new disclosure requirement, and implementation of the changes. BACKGROUND In January 2002, the FASB discussed the objective and scope of a potential major project on the recognition of revenue and liability in financial statement. In June 2002, the IASB added the revenue recognition project to its technical agenda. In September 2002, the FASB and the IASB formally agreed to work jointly on the revenue recognition project. In December 2008, the Boards issued for public comment the Discussion Paper which boards proposed the general principles of a contract based alternative...
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...Group 1 ACCT 5321.001 Dr. Martin Taylor FASB/IASB Exposure Draft on Leases The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) published comment a revised Exposure Draft on Leases on May 16th, 2013 and closed on September 13th, 2013. Based on this exposure, two boards claimed that the existing financial reporting of leasing activities fails to meet the needs of users of financial statements. While the existing accounting principles require to record the leased assets and liabilities on the lessee’s financial statements under capital/finance lease but not under operational leases, the new approach would require a lessee to recognize assets and liabilities for all leases with a maximum possible term (including any option to extend) of more than 12 months. This new approach also changes lessor accounting that it more accurately reflect the leasing activities of different lessors. The boards received 786 comment letters in response to the 2010 Exposure Draft from entities and organizations from many industries, including nonpublic entities. Some respondents supported the effects of the proposed model, some respondents disagreed with the lessor accounting proposals. The reasons are that it was not consistent with the single accounting model proposed for lessees; it did not support the performance obligation approach; and the existing lessor accounting requirements still work well in practice. Respondents also concerned with...
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...FASB and GASB Analysis Paper ACC/460 Carolyn S. Lundy 5/14/2012 Victoria Holmes The FASB and GASB share something’s in common but they function very differently. Their similarities include both operating as a component of the FAF. The Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) is the organization that has over sight over the FASB, GASB, FASAC and GASAC. Under each of their standards, they both have to look over all letters, comments and concerns before making any decisions and in some cases can be made available to the public. Here is where they differ, the FASB has the authority to make and set any new accounting standards to be put in place, which will be recognized by the Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC). The GASB standards are not recognized to be any formal law or ruling, but its standards can be enforced by the individual states that choose the right to. The GASB is solely public and there is unlimited access. In fact, the GASB encourages the public to become heavily involved in their meetings. You can find some records of what will be discussed through the GASB website on the say the meeting will take place. The FASB reports all nongovernment information that will help private entities make the correct accounting decisions. Under the respective standard process, the FASB houses 7 rules that must be in place, the most important seemingly to be that the Board cares and puts the issues of the stakeholders/shareholders first. As with the GASB, they send those to...
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...accounting theory. Historical development of accounting standards. Authoritative pronouncements and standards-setting bodies. Questions 1 2, 3, 4 5, 6, 7, 8 Cases 1 3, 4 2, 4 4. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 5, 17 5. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 28 29 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 6. 7. 8. Role of pressure groups. International accounting. Ethical issues. 9, 18, 19 15 14 1-1 ASSIGNMENT CHARACTERISTICS TABLE Item C1-1 C1-2 C1-3 C1-4 C1-5 C1-6 C1-7 C1-8 C1-9 C1-10 C1-11 C1-12 C1-13 C1-14 C1-15 C1-16 C1-17 C1-18 C1-19 Description Financial accounting. Objectives of financial reporting. Accounting numbers and the environment. Need for accounting standards. AICPA’s role in standards setting. FASB role in standards setting. Government role in standards setting. Meaning of generally accepted accounting principles. Politicalization of standards setting. Models for setting accounting standards. Standards-setting terminology. Accounting organizations and documents issued. Accounting pronouncements. Issues involving standards setting. Securities and Exchange Commission. Standards-setting process. History of standards-setting organizations. Economic Consequences. Standards-setting process, economic consequences. Level of Difficulty Simple Moderate Simple Simple Simple Simple Simple Moderate Complex Simple Moderate Simple Simple Complex Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Time (minutes) 15-20 20-25 10-15 15-20 20-25 20-25 10-15 20-25...
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...ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING EDUCATION Vol. 26, No. 1 2011 pp. 155–162 American Accounting Association DOI: 10.2308/iace.2011.26.1.155 Bioscience Company: Accounting for Idle Plant Assets Victoria Dickinson, Paul Kimmel, and Terry Warfield ABSTRACT: Bioscience Company and its auditors have been in discussions with the SEC concerning the accounting for its long-lived assets. Among the issues being discussed is the company’s discontinuation of depreciation on productive assets that it had used previously, but it was not currently using. The case permits a technical examination of depreciation and impairment accounting issues with consideration of the FASB’s asset/liability measurement approach, fair value accounting, use of the FASB Codification, and comparisons to International Financial Reporting Standards. The case requirements are divided into basic requirements, which would be appropriate for intermediate level students; and advanced requirements, which would be more appropriate for accounting seniors, as well as M.B.A. and fifth-year accounting students. Keywords: accounting for long-lived assets; depreciation; impairment. INTRODUCTION ristin Murphy recently joined the audit team of one of the more interesting clients in her accounting firm’s practice. An important issue has arisen for this client on a topic that she has not encountered in her four years with the firm. Following is some background on the client and the accounting issue under consideration. K BIOSCIENCE...
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...Model…………………………….. 8 Controversy Surrounding the CECL Model………………. 9 FASB’s Exposure Draft…………………………………….. 10 Conclusion………………………………………………….. 13 Introduction It is imperative that the FASB adopt a new model for the recognition of credit losses on financial instruments held by banks, lending institutions, and private organizations. The economic crisis of 2008 was a result of the current failing “incurred loss” model because it failed to alert investors to credit losses. The problems with the present model is it delays recognition of credit losses until the losses are deemed to be actually incurred or incurred under a high level of probability. A large majority of financial statements users are in agreement that the FASB needs to adopt a new model, while the real issue lies in tailoring this new model to work fairly and efficiently for all. The answer is to implement and establish a new impairment model that requires consideration of forward-looking information to assess the estimated cash flows to be received on amounts due from customers, investment securities, and other financial instruments. The FASB needs to make a serious change to the present impairment model in order to adapt to today’s economy. Background The global financial credit crisis of 2008 highlighted the need for the FASB to adopt a new approach in the recognition of credit losses on loans and other financial instruments held by banks, lending institutions, and...
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...International Accounting Standards Board Introduction Accounting plays a very significant role in the success of any business organization as it helps its users make decisions. Different accounting principles grew out of the divergent economic and social environments of various nations and regions. Difference among national accounting become more disconcerting when trade barriers between nations were reduced due to international cooperation developments. Efforts have increased during the past decade to move nations toward using international standards. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is an organization that regulates the accounting standards which are accepted globally by almost all the countries in the world. This paper will first discuss the history of IASB. Next it will explain the structure of IASB. After that, the paper will talk about how International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are created. Finally, it will describe the effort to converge IFRS with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). History of IASB International Accounting Standards Board was first known as International Accounting Standard Committee (IASC) which existed from 1973 to 2001. It was responsible for developing the International Accounting Standards (IASs) and promoting the use and application of these standards. After nearly 25 years of achievement, the IASC concluded that it must find a way to converge between national accounting standards and...
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