The Private Company Financial Reporting Committee discussed FIN 48, fair value and other matters at its latest meeting.
The committee, a joint effort of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the American Institute of CPAs, talked about the standard on accounting for uncertainty in income taxes, FASB Interpretation No. 48, which FASB has proposed delaying for all nonpublic entities.
"They said they were going to give guidance on pass-through entities, so we discussed in a joint meeting with the Technical Issues Committee some of the examples where people had problems," said PCFRC chair Judy O'Dell.
The committee will send a letter to FASB with some examples of the problems that private companies have identified with FIN 48 compliance, including state nexus issues. O'Dell (pictured) said she would like to hear more about such problems from accountants and will pass those along to FASB.
The committee also spent time talking about FIN 46, the standard governing consolidation of variable interest entities. There too the PCFRC has been trying to track down issues to bring to FASB's attention. "We will be going out to the users in our group to get issues they are seeing when attempting to deal with these consolidated financial statements," said O'Dell.
The PCFRC also discussed responses to FASB's exposure drafts of proposed standards on subsequent events and going-concern reporting. The PCFRC also spent time discussing a financial statement presentation project and issues relating to fair value accounting in the private company sector, which has become a controversial topic lately for financial institutions.
"We were talking about whether the guidance in FAS 157 is operational," said O'Dell. "Was anybody having problems implementing it?" However, she characterized the discussion as just general and educational, and the committee did not delve into any of the thornier topics that have emerged lately about how mortgage-related assets should be treated.
The PCFRC also discussed an upcoming document from the International Accounting Standards Board on International Financial Reporting Standards for private entities, and whether the committee should examine it to see if it would be applicable in the United States.
