The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) held a public meeting on April 8, 2020 to approve measures intended to provide stakeholders with accounting relief and clarity during the COVID-19 crisis.

In the coming days, the FASB will issue a proposal to provide certain private companies and not-for-profit organizations with an optional, one-year effective date delay of the leases standard. Stakeholders will have a 15-day comment period from the time of issuance to review and provide comments on the proposal. The FASB will also add a project to its research agenda to see if there are opportunities to provide revenue recognition implementation expedients to franchisors. While that project is ongoing, the private company franchisors will also be given a one-year deferral for the revenue recognition standard.

Additionally, the FASB staff soon will issue a leases question-and-answer document to help stakeholders account for the rapid, unprecedented lease concessions lessors are seeking to provide tenants during the pandemic. The staff also addressed implementation questions about other crisis-related issues, including interest income and loan payment holidays, hedging, and fair value accounting. The staff also noted that they have received questions related to accounting for loans from the Small Business Administration and that they will work with stakeholders to provide accounting clarity in that area as well. This information will be memorialized in FASB’s upcoming summary of tentative Board decisions (TBDs) and meeting minutes to be posted to the FASB website.

Please contact us for more information. Your trusted advisors at Stephano Slack are here to answer your questions and help you apply the current accounting guidance to your personal business circumstances.

Jim Forgione, CPA, A&A Partner
jforgione@stephanoslack.com

Jay Brooks, CPA, A&A Partner 
jbrooks@stephanoslack.com

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