Financial Reporting

  The AICPA’s accounting standards staff issued Technical Practice Aid (TPA) 6931.11, Fair Value Measurement Disclosures for Master Trusts. The aid, available at tinyurl.com/d94du2, provides guidance on fair value measurement disclosure requirements for an employee benefit plan when the plan holds investments in a master trust.

  The Financial Crisis Advisory Group (FCAG) recently formed by FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) plans to issue in July its report on the standard-setting implications of the global financial crisis and potential changes to the global regulatory environment, according to a letter sent to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in his role as chair of the Group of 20 (G-20).

The FCAG said the financial crisis has exposed critical weaknesses in business practices and financial regulation and emphasized that the FCAG fully shares the G-20’s sense of urgency regarding the agenda for broad-based reform in the wake of the crisis and recognizes that improvements in financial reporting are an integral part of that reform agenda.

The letter further pointed out that the IASB and FASB are working jointly to improve and converge standards and have given priority to areas highlighted by the financial crisis. The FCAG letter said the joint financial instruments project undertaken by the two standard-setting bodies is wide-ranging and complex, and issuing a comprehensive proposal by the end of 2009, as the G-20 has urged, is ambitious and challenging. The letter is available at tinyurl.com/cqfkg2.