Comment Letter to the FASB Discussion Memorandum "New Basis of Accounting"

Abstract This article summarizes the response of the American Accounting Association's Financial Accounting Standards Committee regarding the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) Discussion Memorandum on New Basis of Accounting. the charge of the American Accounting Association's Financial Accounting Standards Committee is to respond to requests for comments by standard setters on issues that relate to financial reporting. Although the comments submitted are those of the Committee and not those of the American Accounting Association, the Committee serves the purpose of increasing the Association's influence in this important area. An overall recommendation made by the Committee was that the Board should, over time, make a broad shift to the use of fair values in accounting because many issues that we face in accounting such as this one, would be resolved by switching to such a model. The primary recommendation was that fair values should be used in those cases in which control bad changed, assuming an adequate degree of reliability can be achieved in measuring the fair value of the portion for which control bas changed. The Committee also believed that control must result in a transfer of the risks and rewards of ownership and should not be temporary.