The Conceptual Framework and the Promulgation of Pension Accounting Standards

A conceptual approach can be used to solve accounting problems. The Financial Accounting Standards Board has been noted for its efforts to develop such an approach in the form of a conceptual framework. Those efforts have resulted in Statements of Financial Accounting Concepts, which are designed to identify the goals and concepts that will underlie accounting standards established through use of a conceptual framework. This paper has examined Board publications in the area pension accounting to determine if the goals and concepts identified by SFACs 1-4 can be found in those documents. The documents, which consisted of two FASBs and a Discussion Memorandum, with some notable exceptions, were found to contain those goals and concepts. Therefore, in the area of pension accounting, Board practice in establishing accounting standards can be reconciled to Board theory