Use of the Extraordinary Item

Recent FASB Guidance in the Context of Current Practice

George O. Gamble, PhD, and Thomas R. Noland, PhD, CPA, and Tharindra Ranasinghe, and Sandip Dhole, PhD

At its March 10, 2010, board meeting, FASB affirmed its prior tentative decision that a company should not present the effects of extraordinary, unusual, and infrequently occurring events and transactions as a functional category in the statement of comprehensive income, as has been required under the Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Subtopic 225-20, Income Statement—Extraordinary and Unusual Items (originally issued as Accounting Principles Board [APB] Opinion 30). While ASC 225-20 is not superseded as of the writing of this article, the board has moved one step closer to permanently eliminating extraordinary item reporting. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) already prohibits reporting extraordinary items.