Tag: GAAP
Managers want to earn a profit. Investors search for companies whose stock prices will increase. Banks seek borrowers who’ll pay their debts. Accounting provides the information these people use for decision making. Accounting can be based on either the
Accrual accounting records the impact of a business transaction as it occurs. When the business performs a service, makes a sale, or incurs an expense, the accountant records the transaction even if it receives or pays no cash.
Cash-basis accounting records only cash transactions cash receipts and cash payments. Cash receipts are treated as revenues, and cash payments are handled as expenses. Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) require accrual accounting. The business records revenues as the revenues are earned and expenses as the expenses are incurred not necessarily when cash changes hands. Consider a sale on account. Which transaction increases your wealth making an $800 sale on account, or collecting the $800 cash? Making the sale increases your wealth by $300 because you gave up inventory that cost you $500 and you got a receivable worth $800. Collecting cash later merely swaps your $800 receivable for $800 cash no gain on this transaction. Making the sale not collecting the cash increases your wealth.
The basic defect of cash-basis accounting is that the cash basis ignores important information. That makes the financial statements incomplete. The result People using the statements make decisions based on incomplete information, which can lead to mistakes. Suppose your business makes a sale on account. The cash basis does not record the sale because you received no cash. You may be thinking, let’s wait until we collect cash and then record the sale. After all, we pay the bills with cash, so ignore transactions that don’t affect cash. What’s wrong with this argument? There are two defects one on the balance sheet and the other on the income statement.
Balance Sheet Defect If we fail to record a sale on account, the balance sheet reports no account receivable. Why is this so bad? The receivable represents a claim to receive cash in the future, which is a real asset, and it should appear on the balance sheet. Without this information, assets are understated on the balance sheet. Income Statement Defect a sale on account provides revenue that increases the company’s wealth. Ignoring the sale understates revenue and net income on the income statement. The take-away lessons from this discussion are as follows:
Companies that use the cash basis of accounting do not follow GAAP. Their financial statements omit important information. All but the smallest businesses use the accrual basis of accounting.
Accrual accounting is more complex and, in terms of the Conceptual Foundations of Accounting, is a more faithful representation of economic reality than Cash-basis accounting.
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The NAIC approved SSAP 10R, a revised, temporary replacement of the income tax standard under SSAP 10. The revised standard is effective for year-end 2009 and year-end and interim 2010.
The NAIC revised this standard in order to be more in line with the Statutory Statement of Concepts of conservatism and transparency. The revisions are considered a change in accounting principle and will be accounted for as a cumulative effect adjustment to unassigned surplus as of December 31, 2009. If applicable and elected by company, these changes will require significant alterations to the companys deferred tax calculation under statutory accounting.
The main differences as a result of SSAP 10R are the concept of GAAP valuation allowance, reversal and carryback periods, increase in surplus limitation and additional disclosures.
GAAP Valuation Allowance Concept –
The addition of the valuation allowance concept applies to all companies. As under FAS 109 for GAAP reporting, the Company must consider if their gross deferred tax assets (DTA) will more likely than not (greater than 50 percent chance) be able to be realized. This concept must now be applied under statutory prior to the admissibility calculations.
Admissibility Changes
The most significant changes under SSAP 10R in admissibility are the following:
Eligibility If the company is subject to Risk Based Capital (RBC) requirements or files a RBC report then they may be allowed additional admitted DTA if their RBC level is above the following thresholds laid out in the new paragraph 10.d:
1.The risk based capital trend test (if subject to risk-based capital trend test); or
2.If not subject to risk-based capital trend test, the maximum risk-based capital level where an action level could occur as a result of a trend test (i.e. 250% for life/fraternal and 300% for P&C/health).
Reversal/Carryback Periods If the company is subject to RBC and meets one of the above thresholds, they may elect to follow paragraph 10.e to calculate additional admitted DTA. The calculation under 10.e starts with the net DTA from original SSAP 10 less any valuation allowance. The reversal periods now correspond with the IRS tax loss carryback provisions, not to exceed three years, based on the tax character of the temporary difference. For example, life companies are allowed to carryback tax losses three years so a life company would follow a three year reversal under paragraph 10.e.i (increased from the current one year reversal). Whereas a non-life company would follow a two year reversal. Capital tax items would use a three year reversal period since that is consistent with the capital loss carryback provisions. For purposes of the realization calculation and the with and without test, a three year period would apply regardless of character of temporary differences but can still only apply as the law allows (i.e. capital loss cannot offset non-capital income).
Surplus Limitation Increased The DTA admitted under 10.e.ii is limited to 15% of adjusted statutory capital and surplus, an increase from 10% under 10.b.ii.
Disclosure
SSAP 10R also requires several additional disclosures for all companies, regardless of whether the additional DTA admissibility applies.
The following are some of the additional disclosures required:
DTA must now be broken out by gross, adjusted gross, admitted and non-admitted;
DTA and DTL shown by tax character;
Statement as to if the company has elected to admit DTAs under 10.e;
Increased amount and change in amount of admitted adjusted DTA as a result of 10.e, by tax character;
Amount of admitted DTA, by tax character, calculated under each 10.a, 10.b.i, 10.b.ii, 10.c, 10.e.ii.a, 10.e.ii.b and 10.e.iii and the risk-based capital level used to determine if the company meet the required threshold; and
Amount of admitted DTA, admitted assets, statutory surplus and total adjusted capital used in the RBC calculation resulting from the calculation under 10.a, 10.b and 10.c and the increased amount of DTA, admitted assets, and surplus resulting from use of 10.e, if any.