NEWS RELEASE 12/23/11

FASB Defers Certain Aspects of Comprehensive Income Accounting Standards Update

Norwalk, CT, December 23, 2011—The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) today issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2011-12, Comprehensive Income (Topic 220): Deferral of the Effective Date for Amendments to the Presentation of Reclassifications of Items Out of Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income in Accounting Standards Update No. 2011-05. The Update defers the specific requirement to present items that are reclassified from accumulated other comprehensive income to net income separately with their respective components of net income and other comprehensive income.

Earlier this year, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2011-05, Comprehensive Income (Topic 220): Presentation of Comprehensive Income. The Update was intended to increase the prominence of other comprehensive income in financial statements and help financial statement users better understand the cause of a company's change in financial position and results of operations. Stakeholders, however, recently raised concerns that new presentation requirements about the reclassification of items out of accumulated other comprehensive income would be costly for preparers and add unnecessary complexity to financial statements. As a result of these concerns, the Board decided to reconsider whether it is necessary to require companies to present reclassification adjustments by component in both the statement where net income is presented and the statement where other comprehensive income is presented for both interim and annual financial statements. The Board did not defer the requirement to report comprehensive income either in a single continuous statement or in two separate but consecutive financial statements.

To defer only those changes in Update 2011-05 that relate to the presentation of reclassification adjustments, the amendments in this Update supersede only those paragraphs that pertain to how and where reclassification adjustments are presented. While the Board is considering the operational concerns about the presentation requirements for classification adjustments, entities will continue to report reclassifications out of accumulated comprehensive income consistent with the presentation requirements in effect before Update 2011-05.

The amendments are effective at the same time as the amendments in Update 2011-05. Therefore, the amendments in this Update are effective for public entities for fiscal years, and interim periods within those years, beginning after December 15, 2011. For nonpublic companies and not-for-profit organizations, the amendments in this Update are effective for fiscal years ending after December 15, 2012, and interim and annual periods thereafter.

The Update is available at www.fasb.org.


About the Financial Accounting Standards Board

Since 1973, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has been the designated organization in the private sector for establishing standards of financial accounting and reporting. Those standards govern the preparation of financial reports and are officially recognized as authoritative by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Such standards are essential to the efficient functioning of the economy because investors, creditors, auditors, and others rely on credible, transparent, and comparable financial information. For more information about the FASB, visit our website at www.fasb.org.