PCC Wants to Remove Effective Dates for New Accounting Standards

The Private Company Council is calling for the removal of the effective dates of four accounting standards updates.

At a meeting last Friday, the members of the PCC reached a final consensus asking the Financial Accounting Standards Board to remove the effective dates for the following four accounting standards updates:

• ASU No. 2014-02, Intangibles—Goodwill and Other (Topic 350)
• ASU No. 2014-03, Derivatives and Hedging (Topic 815)
• ASU No. 2014-07, Consolidation (Topic 810): Applying Variable Interest Entities Guidance to Common Control Leasing Arrangements
• ASU No. 2014-18, Business Combinations (Topic 805): Accounting for Identifiable Intangible Assets in a Business Combination

The PCC works with the Financial Accounting Standards Board to recommend changes in accounting standards for privately held companies. FASB plans to meet in the near future to consider endorsement of the final consensus. The standards are mainly ones that the PCC had originally asked FASB to simplify for private companies.

At the same meeting, the PCC voted to add a new project to its agenda concerning the application of Variable Interest Entities guidance to companies under common control that are not already addressed in ASU 2014-07, Consolidation (Topic 810): Applying Variable Interest Entities Guidance to Common Control Leasing Arrangements. The PCC directed FASB’s staff to work with private company stakeholders to develop examples to help clarify application of VIE guidance in those situations.

In addition, the PCC discussed FASB’s Disclosure Framework review of income taxes and disagreed with FASB’s tentative decision to require a rate reconciliation for private companies.

At the end of the meeting, retiring PCC chairman Billy Atkinson thanked his fellow PCC members for their efforts over the past three years, along with FASB private company liaison Daryl Buck and the FASB staff. FASB chairman Russ Golden and FAF trustee Mack Lawhon in turn thanked Atkinson and the other outgoing PCC members—Mark Ellis, Neville Grusd, and Diane Rubin—for getting the PCC off to a successful start.

Atkinson will be succeeded on January 1 by Candace Wright, a director with the firm Postlethwaite & Netterville.