FASB Offers More Accounting Guidance on New Tax Law

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has posted four more Staff Q&A documents dealing with various financial accounting and reporting implementation issues stemming from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the far-reaching tax overhaul that Congress passed last month.

Earlier this month, FASB issued an initial Staff Q&A document issued on the subject of whether private companies and not-for-profits can apply the SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin 118 (see FASB issuing guidance on applying tax cut law).

The four new Staff Q&A documents that FASB posted Monday cover the following topics:

• Whether to Discount the Tax Liability on the Deemed Repatriation

• Whether to Discount Alternative Minimum Tax Credits That Become Refundable

• Accounting for the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax

• Accounting for Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income

The new tax law, which moved rapidly through Congress late last year, has prompted FASB and the IRS, not to mention accountants and tax professionals in general, to quickly adapt to a vastly different tax regime. Corporate finance departments have been kept busy weighing the impact on their quarterly financial statements in recent weeks, and the IRS was temporarily interrupted by the federal government shutdown in producing much-needed guidance of its own. While FASB has not yet had time to produce a formal accounting standards update, which requires input from its stakeholders, the board has been able to respond more rapidly with Staff Q&A documents to deal with pressing questions related to different aspects of the sweeping tax legislation.

SOURCE: https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/fasb-offers-more-accounting-guidance-on-new-tax-law