FASB
Meeting held April 10
All decisions reached at Board meetings are tentative and may be changed at future meetings. Decisions are included in an Exposure Draft only after a formal written ballot. Decisions reflected in Exposure Drafts are often changed in redeliberations by the Board based on information received in comment letters, at public roundtable discussions, and from other sources. Board decisions become final after a formal written ballot to issue a final Accounting Standards Update.
At its April 10 meeting, the Board discussed the joint leasing project's effect on financial reporting complexity, a new agenda item to address a narrow fair value disclosure issue for nonpublic employee benefit plans, and the comment deadline for the Private Company Decision-Making Framework, as described below.
Board to proceed with re-exposing converged leasing guidance
The FASB discussed the proposed lease accounting model's impact on financial reporting complexity and decided to proceed with issuing an Exposure Draft on lease accounting in May for a 120-day comment period.
The proposed model would employ a dual income statement recognition approach by treating some leases as financing arrangements and others as what are known today as operating leases. Entities would recognize all leases on the balance sheet under the proposed model.
New agenda item to provide disclosure relief for nonpublic employee benefit plans
The Board decided to add a project to its agenda that would indefinitely defer certain fair value disclosure requirements for nonpublic employee benefit plans that hold shares of private company plan sponsors.
The FASB added this project in response to concerns from private company preparers that application of certain fair value disclosure requirements could result in nonpublic employee benefit plans disclosing otherwise private information about the fair value of a plan sponsor's securities. This is because nonpublic employee benefit plans, which often primarily hold sponsor shares that are classified as Level 3 financial assets, must file their financial statements with the U.S. Department of Labor, which are publicly accessible.
The Board expects to issue a proposed ASU by May 1, with a comment period ending on May 31.
Deadline set for comments on Private Company Decision-Making Framework
The Board decided that the comment period for its Invitation to Comment, Private Company Decision-Making Framework, will end on June 21, so that the feedback can be discussed at the Private Company Council's July 16 meeting.
Board proposes Codification amendments for financial instruments project
The FASB recently issued a proposed Accounting Standards Update (ASU), Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities: Proposed Amendments to the FASB Accounting Standards Codification®, to expose for comment amendments to the FASB Accounting Standards Codification® (Codification) resulting from codifying the guidance in the proposed ASU, Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities, issued in February.
The February ASU includes the Board's proposed recognition and measurement model for financial instruments, but omits any details regarding how the Codification would be amended to reflect the proposed model. Accordingly, the FASB issued the most recent proposed ASU as a companion document to the February proposal to provide these details.
Comments on both proposed ASUs are due on May 15.
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