The Private Company Council, which suggests tweaks to GAAP for non-public companies as well as advises the FASB on matters relevant to private companies, voted during its last meeting to recommend that the effective dates for four different standards be moved up to "immediately." 

The effected standard would include ASU No. 2014-02, Intangibles—Goodwill and Other (Topic 350), ASU No. 2014-03,Derivatives and Hedging (Topic 815), ASU No. 2014-07,Consolidation (Topic 810):Applying Variable Interest Entities Guidance to Common Control Leasing Arrangements, and ASU No. 2014-18,Business Combinations (Topic 805): Accounting for Identifiable Intangible Assets in a Business Combination. 

With the exception of the last one, on business combinations, their current effective date is for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2014, and interim periods within annual periods beginning after December 15, 2015. The one pertaining to business combinations has an effective date that depends on the timing of the first in-scope transaction: If the first in-scope transaction occurs in the first fiscal year beginning after December 15, 2015, the elective adoption will be effective for that fiscal year’s annual financial reporting and all interim and annual periods thereafter. If the first in-scope transaction occurs in fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2016, the

elective adoption will be effective in the interim period that includes the date of

that first in-scope transaction and subsequent interim and annual periods thereafter.

Currently, if an entity wants to adopt a private company GAAP alternative once the official effective date has passed it needs to perform a preferability assessment to ensure that this new way of doing things will result in more accurate financial information. An April FASB memo, however, said that private company stakeholders raised concerns that, due to the rapidly shifting circumstances that businesses often face, the effective date may not be an opportune time to adopt the alternative, but it might become reasonable to do so in another. 

"One example of such a circumstance is when a private company’s owners plan to take their company public but later decide to keep it private. Prior to the owner’s planned strategic change, that private company would have likely not adopted

the private company alternatives, but after the owner’s decision not to make a strategic

change, that private company would likely benefit from adopting the alternatives. Thus,

proponents assert that it is counterproductive to impose additional requirements to adopt accounting alternatives solely because certain circumstances do not coincide with the effective dates of the private company alternatives," according to the April memo. 

By eliminating the effective dates on the standards, so too would be the requirement to conduct a preferability assessment in order to adopt them at a later date. 

The decision will now head to the FASB for final approval.