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, September 20, 2017 FASB Board Meeting
Agenda priority.
The Board discussed (1) the results of staff research and analysis on
the projects included in the FASB Invitation to Comment, Agenda Consultation, and (2) the status of its research agenda and made the following decisions.
Intangibles. The Board decided to remove the holistic project on
Intangibles from its research agenda and maintain a component on its
research agenda focused on developing qualitative disclosures about
intangibles as part of the overall disclosure framework project.
The Board also decided to combine the following two projects on its
research agenda: (a) Accounting for Identifiable Intangible Assets in a
Business Combination for Public Business Entities (PBEs) and
Not-for-Profit Entities (NFPs) and (b) Subsequent Accounting for
Goodwill for PBEs and NFPs.
Pensions and Other Postretirement Benefit Plans. The Board decided to remove from its research agenda a project on pensions and other postretirement benefit plans.
Distinguishing Liabilities from Equity (Including Convertible Debt).
The Board decided to add to its agenda a project on distinguishing
liabilities from equity. The objective of the project is to improve
understandability and reduce complexity (without loss of information for
users). The project will focus on indexation and settlement (in the
context of the derivative scope exception), convertible debt,
disclosures, and earnings-per-share.
Financial Performance Reporting.
Disaggregation of Performance Information
The Board decided to add a project to its agenda to focus on the
disaggregation of performance information. The project would consider
disaggregation either through presentation in the income statement or
through disclosure in the notes. The project would base the
disaggregation on requiring functional lines to be disaggregated into
natural components.
Structure of the Performance Statement
The Board retained a component of the project on its research agenda
associated with improving the structure of the performance statement and
developing an operating performance measure.
Segment Reporting. The Board decided to add a project to its
agenda on segment reporting. The objective of the project is to improve
the segment aggregation criteria and to improve the disclosure
requirements.
Interaction with Not-for-Profit Phase 2 Research Project. The
Board considered how the projects on disaggregation of performance
information and segment reporting interact with the NFP phase 2 research
project. The Board decided to remove from the scope of the NFP Phase 2
research project an alternative that would have required an NFP health
care entity to apply Topic 280, Segment Reporting. The Board also
decided to combine its research projects on for-profit entities and
not-for profit entities for structuring the performance statement (or
statement of activities).
Accounting for Income Taxes: Presentation of Tax Expense/Benefit.
The Board decided to continue its research on this project and to
expand the scope to consider other potential simplifications to
accounting for income taxes that were suggested by stakeholders.
Inventory and Cost of Sales. The Board decided to continue its research on this project.
Targeted Improvements to the Statement of Cash Flows. The Board decided to continue its research on potential targeted improvements to the statement of cash flows.
Accounting for Financial Instruments: Interest Rate Risk Disclosures. The Board decided to remove this project from the research agenda.