设定收益制养老金会计新准则-----外文翻译.docVIP

原文2 New Accounting Rules for Defined Benefit Pension Plans MARCH 2008 - Issued in September 2006, Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) 158, Employers’ Accounting for Defined Benefit Pension and Other Postretirement Plans—An Amendment of FASB Statements No. 87, 88, 106, and 132(R), significantly changes the balance-sheet reporting for defined benefit pension plans. Before SFAS 158, the effects of certain events, such as plan amendments or actuarial gains and losses, were granted delayed balance-sheet recognition. As a result, a plan’s funded status (plan assets minus obligations) was rarely reported on the balance sheet. SFAS 158 requires companies to report their plans’ funded status as either an asset or a liability on their balance sheets, which will cause reported pension liabilities to rise significantly. Although SFAS 158 also applies to postretirement benefit plans other than pensions and to not-for-profit entities, the focus below is on for-profit businesses with defined benefit pension plans. Balance-Sheet Reporting Under SFAS 158 Under SFAS 87, prepaid or accrued pension cost, which is the net of a firm’s pension assets, liabilities, and unrecognized amounts, is reported on the balance sheet. SFAS 158 arguably improves financial reporting by more clearly communicating the funded status of defined benefit pension plans. Previously, this information was reported only in the detailed pension footnotes. Under SFAS 158, companies with defined benefit pension plans must recognize the difference between the plan’s projected benefit obligation and its fair value of plan assets as either an asset or a liability. The projected benefit obligation is the actuarial present value of the benefits attributed by the pension plan benefit formula for services already provided. As a result, the complex and conceptually unsound “minimum pension liability” rules, which are used when the accumulated benefit obligation is less than the fair value of pension plan as