aternes CP 11-2 Recognizing pension expense The annual examination of Felton Company's financial statements by its external public accounting firm (auditors) is nearing completion. The following conversation took place between the controller of Felton Company (Francie) and the audit manager from the public accounting firm (Sumana): Sumana: You know, Francie, we are about to wrapup our audit for this fiscal year. Yet, there is one item still to be resolved Francie: What's that? Sumana Well, as you know, at the beginning of the year, Felton began a defined benefit pension plan. This plae promises your employees an annual payment when they retire, using a formula based on their salaries at retiremans and their years of service. I believe that a pension expense should be recognized this year, equal to the amount ef con pension earned by your employees Francie: Wait a minute. I think you have it all wrong. The company doesn't have a pension expense until it actually pays the pension in cash when the employee retires. After all, some of these employees may not reach retirement and if they don't, the company doesn't owe them anything. Sumana: You're not really seeing this the right way. The pension is earned by your employees during their working years. You actually make the payment much later-when they retire. It's like one long accrual-much like incurring wages in one period and paying them in the next. Thus, I think that you should recognize the expense in the period the pension is earned by the employees Francie Let me see if I've got this straight. I should recognize an expense this period for something that may or may not be paid to the employees in 20 or 30 years, when they finally retire. How am I supposed to determine what the expense is for the current year? The amount of the final retirement depends on many uncertainties: salary levels employee longevity, mortality rates, and interest earned on investments to fund the pension, I don't think that an amount can be determined, even if I accepted your arquments 0002 Evaluate Sumana's position. Is she right or is Francie correct? CP 11.2 Eshi