Fugue: Accounting
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has launched a project directed toward major amendments to GAAP on employers' accounting for pensions and other postemployment benefits (OPEBs).
Primary Source Documents
Financial Accounting Standards Board
- Exposure Draft: Proposed Statement of Financial Accounting Standards: Employers' Accounting for Defined Benefit Pensions and Other Postretirement Plans: an amendment of FASB Statements No. 87, 88, 106, and 132(R) (No. 1025-300, 3/31/2006)
- FASB Issues Exposure Draft to Improve Accounting for Postretirement Benefit Plans, Including Pensions (News Release, 3/31/2006)
- Project Updates: Postretirement Benefit Obligations, Including Pensions - FASB web page summarizing the pension/OPEB accounting standards project.
- Minutes of the 3/15/2006 Board Meeting - Final issues relating to the exposure draft for Phase 1, including application to non-profit organizations.
- Action Alert No. 06-10 - Issues to be considered by FASB at 3/15/2006 meeting.
- FASB Response to SEC Study on Arrangements with Off-Balance Sheet Implications, Special Purpose Entities, and Transparency of Filings by Issuers (2/16/06) - Includes brief description of FASB pension/OPEB project.
- Minutes of the 1/18/2006 Board Meeting - Implementation issues relating to the exposure draft for Phase 1.
- Action Alert No. 06-04 - Includes summary of FASB decisions made at 1/18/06 Board meeting, addressing implementation of Phase 1 of the project.
- Board Meeting Handout (1/18/06) - Staff recommendations for implementation of Phase 1, discussed at 1/18/06 Board meeting.
- Minutes of the 12/14/2005 Board Meeting (rev. 12/28/05) - Decisions reached toward substantive elements of exposure draft expected to be published during the 2006 Q1.
- Action Alert No. 05-51 - Includes summary of FASB decisions made at 12/14/05 Board meeting, addressing details of Phase 1 of the project.
- Board Meeting Handout (12/14/05) - Staff recommendations for Phase 1, discussed at 12/14/05 Board meeting (pgs 9-11).
- Minutes of the 11/10/2005 Board Meeting (rev. 12/28/05) - Decision to launch 2-phase project to reconsider employers' accounting for pensions and OPEBs.
- Action Alert No. 05-46 - Includes report of decisions made at 11/10/05 Board meeting, launching the pension/OPEB project.
- News Release (11/10/05) - Brief announcement of the launch of the project, presenting reasons and goals for the project, and summarizing the two phases.
- Board Meeting Handout (11/10/05) - FASB staff recommendations approved by FASB at its 11/10/05 meeting launching the project.
Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council
- Minutes of 12/1/05 Meeting - Includes discussion of FASB project, including several concerns to be addressed.
- Postretirement Benefit Obligations, Including Pensions (12/1/05) - Includes supplemental issues needing attention in Phase 1 of the FASB project.
- Minutes of 9/22/05 Meeting - Preliminary discussion of plans to launch FASB pension/OPEB project
FASB Small Business Advisory Committee
- Minutes of Meeting (11/30/05) (pp 9-10) - Discussions of small business implications of the FASB project.
FASB User Advisory Council
- Minutes of the Meeting (9/29/05) - Preliminary discussions anticipating the subsequent launch of the FASB project.
Securities Exchange Commission
- Report and Recommendations Pursuant to Section 401(c) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on Arrangements with Off-Balance Sheet Implications, Special Purpose Entities, and Transparency of Filings by Issuers (6/15/05) - Key staff report including discussion of pension accounting. (See FASB 2/16/06 response, listed above.)
Additional Materials
American Academy of Actuaries
- Correspondence to FASB - Phase I of FASB project (2/10/06)
- Correspondence to FASB - Project to revisit SFAS 87 (8/18/05)
College of Pension Actuaries
- Correspondence to FASB - Phase 1 Project to Reconsider Pension and Other Postemployment Benefit Accounting Standards
P&B Weblog Posts
- Proposed Pension/OPEB Accounting - Old Transition Balances (4/1/06)
- FASB Exposure Draft of New GAAP for Pensions and OPEBs (3/31/06)
- Final Open Issues of FASB Pension/OPEB Project Phase 1 Include Tax-Exempts (3/14/06)
- Accounting Convergence Roadmap Includes Pension/OPEBs (2/28/06)
- Implementation of Phase 1 of the FASB Project (1/18/06)
- Preliminary summary of Phase 1 of the FASB Project (1/8/06)
[...] Almost from the beginning of this weblog, I’ve launched the Fugue: Accounting page to collect notes and links about FASB’s project aimed at overhauling GAAP for employers’ reporting of pension plans and other postemployement benefits (OPEBs). The project does deserve a page, beyond any mere weblog entry, since the FASB project will persist as one of the major benefits stories of the entire decade, if not beyond. But with my week ahead to see a luncheon where my presentation is likely to include some discussion of the FASB project, let’s call it part of the current flow. [...]
Pingback by BeneBlog » Blog Archive » Major Pension and OPEB Accounting Changes Coming — January 8, 2006 @ 2:41 pm
[...] Employers’ accounting for pensions and other postemployment benefits is one of the destinations explicitly recognized in “A Roadmap for Convergence between IFRSs and US GAAP–2006-2008,” a Memorandum of Understanding between the FASB and the IASB jointly reached by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board®. [News Release] Convergence of U.S. and international accounting standards has been a major influence known for some years inevitably to be bringing significant change of the nature now being pursued in FASB’s project on pension/OPEB accounting reform. Although the IASB does not yet have a corresponding active project, action from both standards authorities is anticipated by 2008. [...]
Pingback by Pensions & Benefits Weblog » Blog Archive » Accounting Convergence Roadmap Includes Pension/OPEBs — February 28, 2006 @ 12:24 am