It’s financial statements preparation time at Center Industries, where you have been assistant controller for two months. Ben Huddler, the controller, seems to be pleasant but unpredictable. Today, although your schedule is filled with meetings with internal and outside auditors and two members of the board of directors, Ben made a request. “As you know, we’re decreasing the rate at which we assume health care costs will rise when measuring our postretirement benefit obligation. I’d like to know how others have reported similar changes. Can you find me an example?” he asked. “I’d bet you could get one off the Internet.” 

Required: 

Access a recent 10-K filing of a firm you think might have a postretirement healthcare plan. You may need to look up several companies before you find what you’re looking for. Older, established companies are most likely to have such benefit plans. (Note: You may be able to focus your search by searching with key words and phrases in Google on the Internet.) Find the portion of the disclosures that reports the effect of a change in healthcare cost trends. 

1. What information is provided about the effect of the change on the company’s estimated benefit obligation? 

2. Obtain the relevant authoritative literature on the disclosure of accounting policies using the FASB Accounting Standards Codification at the FASB website (www.fasb.org). What is the specific eight-digit Codification citation (XXX-XX-XX-X) companies rely on when disclosing the effect of a change in healthcare cost trends?