FASB issues proposal on GAAP hierarchy.

• Position: Accounting & auditing news - Financial Accounting Standards Board - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles - Brief Article

Moving toward its goals of enhancing the quality of financial accounting standards and the standard-setting process, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has published an exposure draft, The Hierarchy of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Comments are due June 27, 2005 (obtain the ED from www.fasb.org).

The GAAP hierarchy, which currently resides in the AICPA's Statement on Auditing Standards No. 69, The Meaning of Present Fairly in Conformity With Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (SAS No. 69), ranks the relative authority of accounting principles issued from multiple standard setters. Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission reaffirmed the FASB as the designated private-sector standard setter for public companies and the FASB has implemented procedures to narrow the types of...