Do you agree with the GASB that deferrals are inherently different from other financial statement elements and need to be reported separately as their own elements? Why or why not? Feel free to disagree with the GASB's conclusion on either conceptual or practical grounds.

Main Question: What is the opinion on this student's response? Please see below.

I actually fully agree with GASB that deferrals are inherently different from other financial statement elements. I grew up in a proprietary fund federal government accounting environment.Because of this I always tend to lean towards an accrual basis of accounting, which is very similar in concept to the deferrals. Because of the want of the proprietary fund to represent as best it can the interperiod activity in the period that is most relevant, I think that more clarification of activities in the current period are better for stakeholders. I agree with the professor when he stated, "because of the importance of the interperiod equity concept, the GASB concluded that deferrals should be defined as separate elements."This helps bring to light items that aren't fully assets or aren't fully liabilities.When there is an item, such as property tax that is due in one period, but may be a late payment, possibly outside of the period, it is relevant to stakeholders that there is a revenue due to the government, that isn't fully a liability nor an asset. These revenues are due to the government and will be paid, but should be used in the interperiod for the original period, not the new period in which the payment was finally made.It just lets the stakeholder know that the entity anticipates the tax payment that will be used to pay for items that incur in the original period, but just hasn't collected the item yet. This is different from an accounts receivable because an accounts receivable item may be used for the next period when the payment is received, and doesn't necessarily tie to the prior period.I could see where it may be argued that the deferred inflows just be accrued and counted as revenue, but I feel like that doesn't give a granularity to the stakeholder that the deferred inflow does. If a deferred inflow is treated as revenue, it violates interperiod and also gives an over inflated view to the stakeholders, because the revenue isn't actually available.