Tax accounting retrospective

July to January 2015

February 2015

Exploring tax accounting issues impacting your company

Highlights

Explore and read more about this issue's highlights:

As part of our continued effort to help organizations navigate through the complexity of today's tax accounting issues, we've assembled a compilation of our Tax Accounting Services' publications released between July 2014 and January 2015.

A brief summary of the publications and links to the relevant documents are included for each topic.

January 2015

Accounting for Income Taxes: 2014 year-end hot topics

Accounting for income taxes has seen legislative and regulatory changes in the United States and abroad in 2014. These developments, combined with an environment of political and economic uncertainty, have added to the existing challenges in accounting for income taxes.

Calendar year 2014 has seen considerable activity in the legislative and regulatory landscapes both in the United States and abroad. These developments, combined with an environment of political and economic uncertainty, have added to the existing challenges in accounting for income taxes.

This publication is focused on topics we believe will be widely relevant to the preparation of 2014 year-end financial statements. Some topics have been discussed in our prior annual publications; however, their continuing importance warrants their inclusion in 2014.

Read the full story.

In brief: FASB proposes two ASUs on income taxes as part of simplification initiative

On January 22, the FASB issued an exposure draft of two proposed ASUs related to the accounting for income taxes: Intra-Entity Asset Transfers and Balance Sheet Classification of Deferred Taxes. The proposed ASUs are part of the Board's simplification initiative aimed at reducing complexity in accounting standards.

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December 2014 major tax law changes

In this insight, we summarise below, major tax law changes that occurred around the world in December 2014 and were not covered in our quarter 4 of 2014 Global Tax Accounting Services (TAS) Newsletter (Q4 2014 newsletter) issued on 22 December 2014.

Information presented in this alert can be helpful to multinational companies in their tax accounting considerations. It is intended to increase readers' awareness of the main global tax law changes during December 2014, but does not offer a comprehensive list of tax law changes that should be considered for financial statements.

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December 2014

Global Tax Accounting Services Newsletter (October-December 2014)

In this release we provide an update on a variety of accounting and reporting developments, including:

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Share-based compensation: understanding the tax accounting

As multinational companies (MNCs) seek to incentivise high performance among employees, the popularity of share-based compensation and equity incentive plans continues to increase. Mobility of global workforces and evolving global tax and regulatory compliance requirements raise significant challenges in administering global equity incentive plans. In addition, tax accounting for equity incentive plans remains a complex area for many MNCs due to the uniqueness of the accounting principles coupled with diverse local territory tax laws.

To assist MNCs with this complex area, we provide a refresher of the tax accounting guidance for share-based compensation under US GAAP and IFRS and highlight similarities and differences between the two accounting standards.

Read the full story.

October 2014

FASB adds stock compensation tax accounting topics to its agenda

During its meeting on October 8, 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (‘FASB' or ‘Board') decided to add the following stock-based compensation topics to its agenda as part of its simplification initiative.

These income tax accounting topics will be addressed along with certain other stock-based compensation topics which were also added to the agenda. The Board's deliberation of these topics is expected to result in an exposure draft that will be issued to solicit broad stakeholder input.

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Global Tax Accounting Services Newsletter (July- September 2014)

In this release we provide an update on a variety of accounting and reporting developments, including:

We also draw your attention to some significant tax law and tax rate changes that occurred around the globe during the quarter ended 30 September 2014.

Read the full story.

July 2014

Point of view: Accounting for income taxes - A case for simplification

Significant changes in the business environment, including changes in tax laws and global expansion, have increased the complexity of accounting for income taxes.

The current income tax accounting standard, developed over two decades ago, includes many mechanical rules and "exceptions" which in today's environment can make it difficult to apply and often yields information that is challenging to understand. Despite significant investment in training and the widespread use of outside service providers, accounting errors and internal control problems persist.

Read the full story.

Point of view: Non-GAAP financial measures: Enhancing their usefulness

Companies often disclose non-GAAP financial measures to provide additional insight into their business. The comparability of non-GAAP financial measures varies from one industry to another, as well as from one company to another. In addition, a lack of transparency regarding their determination, along with inconsistency in how the measures are calculated may limit their efficacy. Further, the subjectivity inherent in how non-GAAP financial measures are calculated could make them susceptible to bias or misinterpretation without proper context and explanation.

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Additional resources

Stay connected to recent tax accounting developments. Explore the new TAS to Go app available on iOS, Windows devices and Android.

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Let's talk

For questions about income tax accounting matters, please contact your local PwC team, our Tax Accounting Services leaders listed below, or the primary authors of each publication.

Market Leader Phone Email
Atlanta Ben Stanga (615)-503-2577 ben.stanga@us.pwc.com
N. California–San Jose Ty Kanaaneh (408)-817-5729 ty.h.kanaaneh@us.pwc.com
N. California–San Francisco Adan Martinez (415)-498-6154 adan.martinez@us.pwc.com
Southern California Darrell Poplock (213)-356-6158 darrell.poplock@us.pwc.com
Carolinas Tamara Williams (704)-344-4146 tamara.williams@us.pwc.com
Chicago Rick Levin (312)-298-3539 richard.c.levin@us.pwc.com
Florida Rafael Garcia (305)-375-6237 rafael.h.garcia@us.pwc.com
Houston Maria Collman (713)-356-5091 maria.t.collman@us.pwc.com
Lake Erie Mike Tomera (412)-355-6095 michael.tomera@us.pwc.com
Michigan Amy Solek (313)-394-6767 amy.j.solek@us.pwc.com
Minneapolis Chad Berge (612)-596-4471 chad.berge@us.pwc.com
Missouri Brian Sprick (314)-206-8509 brian.sprick@us.pwc.com
Northeast David Wiseman (617)-530-7274 david.wiseman@us.pwc.com
New York Metro Allen AhKao (973)-236-5730 allen.p.ahkao@us.pwc.com
New York Metro Gayle Kraden (646)-471-3263 gayle.kraden@us.pwc.com
New York Metro Gary Pogharian (973)-236-5696 gary.m.pogharian@us.pwc.com
New York Metro John Triolo (646)-471-5536 john.triolo@us.pwc.com
Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana Dan Staley (513)-723-4727 daniel.j.staley@us.pwc.com
Pacific Northwest Suzanne Greer (206)-398-3339 suzanne.greer@us.pwc.com
Philadelphia Diane Place (267)-330-6205 diane.place@us.pwc.com
Rockies Mike Manwaring (720)-931-7411 michael.manwaring@us.pwc.com
North Texas Steve Schoonmaker (512)-708-5492 steve.schoonmaker@us.pwc.com
Washington Metro Jamie Grow (703)-918-3458 james.b.grow@us.pwc.com