Tentative Board Decisions

Tentative Board decisions are provided for those interested in following the Board's deliberations. All of the reported decisions are tentative and may be changed at future Board meetings.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016 FASB Board Meeting

Disclosures by business entities about government assistance. The Board discussed feedback received from stakeholders on its November 2015 proposed Accounting Standards Update, Government Assistance (Topic 832): Disclosures by Business Entities about Government Assistance.

The staff plans to begin redeliberations at a future Board meeting to address the following significant issues:
  1. Scope
  2. Disclosure: disclosure of the amount of government assistance received but not recognized directly in the financial statements, unless impracticable
  3. Restrictions
  4. Transition and effective date
  5. Private company considerations
  6. Overall costs and benefits of the disclosures.
The Board was supportive of the staff's redeliberation plan.


Nonemployee share-based payment accounting improvements. The Board continued its deliberations and made the following decisions.

Scope of Topic 718, Compensation—Stock Compensation
The Board decided:
  1. To expand the scope of Topic 718 to include all share-based payment transactions for acquiring goods and services from nonemployees.
  2. To align the post-vesting classification (equity or liability) requirements for employee and nonemployee share-based payment awards.
  3. To include an anti-abuse provision that stipulates a share-based payment to a nonemployee is not within the scope of the new guidance in Topic 718 if the payment is not for goods or services that are normally purchased by the grantor for use or consumption in the ordinary course of its business.
Measurement of Nonemployee Share-Based Awards

The Board decided to require the use of an expected term as an input to the measurement of nonemployee share-based awards.

The Board decided to allow nonpublic entities to:
  1. Substitute calculated value in place of expected volatility as an input to the measurement of nonemployee share-based payment awards.
  2. Make a policy election to measure all liability classified nonemployee share-based awards at fair value or intrinsic value.
Attribution of Costs

The Board decided against adding guidance for attributing compensation cost beyond what exists in current guidance for nonemployee share-based payment awards.

Next Steps

The Board will meet to discuss disclosures, transition, and transition disclosure. Following that meeting, the staff plans to draft the proposed amendments for the Board's review.