Accounting standards

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board is expected to issue new proposals this week that would require state and local governments to be more open about their pension-funding obligations.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board issued amendments Thursday to improve and align the presentation of items of other comprehensive income in financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards and U.S. GAAP.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board agreed Wednesday to re-expose their revised proposals for a common revenue recognition standard, allowing people to offer further suggestions for changes.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has begun a new educational webcast series that will provide continuing professional education credit to those who participate in the live broadcasts

The Financial Accounting Foundation said Wednesday that, as part of its oversight of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, it has commissioned an independent academic study of the purposes of financial accounting and reporting of state and local governments.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has released a new consultation paper seeking views on how to enhance the quality, relevance and value of auditor reporting on an international basis.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have published new requirements for fair value measurement and disclosure.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is still aiming to preserve its job as the standard-setter for private company accounting, while expanding its outreach and consultation with representatives of privately held businesses.

Financial Accounting Standards Board chair Leslie Seidman gave an overview of the work of the board as it tries to achieve its convergence goals with the International Accounting Standards Board, and said they were taking extra time to get the standards right and trying to simplify them to make them easier for accountants to apply.

Our regular readers know that our shtick is criticizing generally accepted accounting principles, as well as those who create and implement them without fully anticipating their negative impact on the quality of the resulting financial statements. This time we're going after accounting for income tax effects, which has roots dating back to 1967 and APB Opinion 11. Even though the Financial Accounting Standards Board tried to reform tax accounting with SFAS 109 20 years ago, we don't see much actual improvement.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued an Accounting Standards Update that would revise the rules for how companies can deal with repurchase agreements like the kind Lehman Brothers used to temporarily move billion of dollars of assets temporarily off its books before reporting its quarterly results.

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board has published its 2011 Handbook of International Public Sector Accounting Pronouncements.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued an exposure draft of a proposed Accounting Standards Update that aims to simplify how an entity is supposed to test goodwill for impairment.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board provided a progress report Thursday on the latest timeline for their major convergence projects.

The International Accounting Education Standards Board proposed changes in its ethics standards to provide for learning and development activities in professional values and ethics for accountants throughout their careers.

Leaders of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board said Thursday they have pushed back their work on the handful of “priority” projects they had committed to complete this year.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has revised its accounting standards to provide greater consistency in the treatment of various types of debt restructuring.

All accountants, and certainly all CPAs, should be keenly interested in and concerned about the activities of the American Institute of CPAs. As the leading professional society for CPAs, it shapes both policy and perceptions for the entire profession, members and non-members alike.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has proposed guidance on how to apply the accounting standards when a hedging derivative is terminated for a government entity.

Representatives of the U.S. and Japanese accounting standards boards met in Connecticut this week to talk about their efforts to converge with international standards.