AICPA seeks continued commitment to private companies

The AICPA is encouraging the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) to maintain the commitment to private company accounting that it has displayed through the work of the Private Company Council (PCC) along with FASB.

The board of trustees of FAF, which is FASB’s parent body, on Feb. 26 released arequestfor comment on the PCC’s effectiveness, accomplishments, and future role in setting standards for private companies. The request was part of a three-year assessment that FAF said it would undertake after establishing the PCC in May 2012.

In the request for comments, FAF’s trustees suggested a potential improvement may be for the PCC to make a transition into a body that primarily provides input on active FASB agenda projects. In addition to providing such feedback in its first three years, the PCC also has reviewed existing GAAP to establish GAAP alternatives for private companies, upon FASB’s endorsement.

In a May 8letterto the FAF trustees, AICPA President and CEO Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMA, and AICPA Chair Tommye E. Barie, CPA, wrote that the PCC cannot become merely an advisory body to FASB on active projects.

“FASB and the PCC have more work to do on existing GAAP,” they wrote.