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Guest Post: CFC Comments on Accounting Standards

This post comes from CFC Solutions Newsletter, Vol. 15, No. 25, July 1, 2013.

CFC recently filed comments with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and Private Company Council (PCC) in response to an invitation to comment on private company financial accounting and reporting standards. CFC’s comments support the continued use of ASC 980 Regulated Operations—formerly Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 71.

“We believe that ASC 980 is equally relevant to users of both private electric utility company and public electric utility company financial statements in evaluating financial performance,” CFC said in its comment letter.

The PCC was created in 2012 to work with FASB in assessing and improving accounting standards for private companies, which include most electric cooperatives. FASB and other stakeholders are attempting to address the increased complexity, cost and, at times, relevance of newer standards to private companies and users of their financial statements.

“The use of the industry-specific guidance is particularly important to CFC’s member-owners,” said Tom Kandel, CFC senior accountant, Regulatory Affairs. “Without the use of ASC 980, electric cooperative financial reporting would become much more irregular, lacking consistency and comparability with investor-owned electric utilities and the electric utility industry as a whole. Regulators, rating agencies and other financial statement users have come to understand and rely on this accounting and financial reporting over the years.”

CFC’s comments to FASB, as well as those from NRECA and electric cooperatives, are available in the Projects section of www.fasb.org; click on Exposure Documents Open for Comment in the Exposure Documents section.

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