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, November 11, 2020 FASB Board Meeting

Identifiable intangible assets and subsequent accounting for goodwill. The Board discussed the staff’s research and analysis on amortization periods and methods for an impairment-with-amortization model for the subsequent accounting for goodwill, as well as evolving models in which the subsequent accounting for goodwill changes over time. The meeting was educational; no decisions were made.


Conceptual framework—presentation. The Board discussed the feedback from comment letter respondents on several issues related to proposed FASB Concepts Statement No. 8, Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting—Chapter 7, Presentation. The Board decided that:
  1. Distinguishing between revenues and gains and expenses and losses should be addressed in the elements chapter of the conceptual framework.
  2. Regarding the aggregation factors in paragraph PR37 of the proposed chapter:
    1. No additional aggregation factors for grouping line items need to be included in the chapter.
    2. For certain factors, clarifying modifications need to be made.
    3. The factors do not need to be in any particular prioritizing order.
    4. Determining comprehensive income subtotals and the ordering of presentation should be addressed at the standards level, rather than as part of the conceptual framework.
  3. The decision that there is no conceptual basis for other comprehensive income should be retained.
  4. No additional detail should be added about the articulation and relationship between financial statements.
  5. Regarding full set of financial statements:
    1. There should be further discussion on whether there is a more suitable term than full set of financial statements.
    2. The term full set of financial statements, or an alternative term decided in the future, should be defined based on its required contents rather than specific statements.
    3. Notes should be excluded from the term’s definition, pending the discussion of whether there should be an alternative term instead of full set of financial statements.
    4. No further explanation on the boundaries of financial statements is needed.
  6. Regarding general purpose financial statements:
    1. The term general purpose financial statements should be defined as financial statements, related notes, supplementary information, and other means of financial reporting that are consistent with the objective of general purpose financial reporting.
    2. There is no distinction between general purpose financial statements and general purpose financial reporting.
    3. The term general purpose financial reporting should be used instead of general purpose financial statements, and previous references to general purpose financial statements should be changed in the Concepts Statements.
Next Steps

The Board will discuss additional feedback from comment letter respondents related to proposed Chapter 7 of Concepts Statement 8 at a future Board meeting.