The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) on November 10 decided to delay the effective date of a final standard requiring additional disclosures about employer participation in multi-employer pension plans.
In an Exposure Draft (ED) issued in September, FASB proposed that additional disclosures for public entities would begin for fiscal years ending after December 15, 2010, and proposed a one-year deferral for private entities. After receiving more than 300 comment letters, FASB decided to delay issuance of the final rule, likely until the second quarter of 2011. FASB stated that it “will decide on an effective date at a future meeting, after it has substantially concluded its redeliberations.”
AGC submitted comments on November 1, the closing date of the comment period, urging FASB to withdraw the ED and reconsider the proposal. AGC’s concerns with the ED are extensive. The draft under-appreciates the costs associated with compliance and overestimates the relevancy of the information that would be provided if the ED were to go into effect as written. Any information included will be neither timely nor accurately reflective of the financial impact of participating in a multiemployer plan. The draft significantly underestimates the complexity of the relationship between employers and multiemployer plans, as well as the importance of the construction industry exemption that makes almost any liability merely theoretical rather than material.
AGC also joined a group of employer organizations in submitting supplemental comments to FASB. In addition, AGC and several AGC chapters signed onto a business community letter led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. To read all of the comment letters submitted to the FASB, including several submitted by AGC chapters and member companies, click here.
For more information, contact Karen Lapsevic at (202) 547-4733 or lapsevick@agc.org.
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