1996 Reports
A Tale Of Two Writeoffs: America Online & Allegiance: The U.S. trend towards overly conservative accounting continued with the recent announcements of asset writeoffs by companies in two completely different industries. America Online announced that they would be writing …
A Revenue Speed Bump For Software Firms?: Software companies frequently enjoy rapid revenue and profit growth due to the tremendous innovation abounding in this industry. Uniformly accounting for revenue recognition has been a slippery area, however, because of the …
Getting A Grip On Derivatives: The FASB's Proposed Rules: The derivatives-related debacles of the past several years have illustrated the weaknesses of financial reporting when it comes to these slippery tools of the corporate treasurer. The accounting literature has …
Reviewing Restructurings: What The Disclosures Show: The rash of restructurings in Corporate America in the last decade has been a tonic for the stock market - and the bane of analysts trying to determine a given company's earning power. …
Rewriting The Income Statement: Introducing: Since the early 1980's, FASB pronouncements have treated equity as a sort of "holding tank" for earnings volatility. Rather than report certain changes in assets and liabilities as components of income, such changes were …
Setting FASB's Agenda: Analysts & Investors Invited: The Financial Accounting Standards Board has long yearned for financial statement user involvement in its task of setting accounting standards. The obvious way for users to make their voices heard is by …
Fixing EPS: The FASB's Basic Solution: The current rules governing the computation of earnings per share were issued in 1969 by the American Institute of CPAs. Within two years of their issuance, the AICPA had published over 100 interpretations …
Cradle To Grave Accounting For Long-Lived Assets: Removing assets from service is not always as simple as trading in a copier or a car for a new one. The problems - and costs - involved in decommissioning a nuclear …
What Keeps The SEC Busy - 1996: Every year in Washington, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants presents its national conference on current SEC developments. This forum provides financial statement preparers with an opportunity to learn about the …
A New Way To Peel The Orange: Changes In Segment Reporting: Analysts have long been confounded by the profusion of business segments within multi-industry firms. Just as the segments of an orange combine to form a whole fruit, so …
