Memo Assignment - FASB Comment Letters

As discussed in class, the FASB provides the ability for comments from the public as part of their continued development of accounting principles, most notably at the time of exposure drafts.These topics and comment letters are available on their website.

Select any accounting topic that you are interested in that is listed on their website, which has received commentary from the public within the last 3 years (multiple comment letters must be available)

Summarize as plainly as you can, what the issues are that the FASB is addressing with this guidance (what is the issue, why is it an issue or being dealt with)

Read several of the comment letters (recommend a topic with at least 5 comment letters) and pay attention to who is responding.Often there are questions that are presented that the public is responding to.Discuss your take of the comment letters.Do you agree with them?Are there inconsistencies across the commentators?Do certain commentators highlight issues that others don't? (e.g. accounting firms vs. corporate entities)?What do you think are the most useful comments?What do you suggest?

In this memo, consider the objective to discuss anything that you believe would be important to highlight if you were at the FASB and about to have a meeting where this memo would serve to begin the conversation on how the public thinks about the guidance, and what should be done.Limit your write up to two pages, but condense as much useful information regarding the above into that page that you can.Font can be no larger than 12 point times new roman.Single spaced lines.

http://www.fasb.org/jsp/FASB/Page/SectionPage&cid=1176157086783

Examples:

Project: 2015-330- Business Combinations (Topic 805): Clarifying the Definition of a Business