Photo Illustration: Jonathan Hurtarte/Bloomberg Tax; Photos: Getty Images Proposal calls on public companies to reveal segment expenses Limited plan doesn’t tackle complaints about dearth of segments It’s billed as the most significant change to segment reporting in financial statements since 1997, but to the investors and analysts waiting years for improvements to the way companies report their major business lines, it falls far short. The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s proposal calls on companies to break out new details about significant expenses in their operating segments—but it tinkers with existing rules rather than overhauling them. It also injects extra flexibility into an already judgment-laden set of rules, analysts and investors are telling the US accounting rulemaker. “It’s not something that I think is a game changer or something investors are going to be excited about in its current structure,” said David Gonzales, senior accounting analyst at Moody’s Investors Service. “We can’t say it will provide better information to investors.” The October proposal calls on public companies to break out the significant expenses in their operating segments—units within a company that earn money and incur expenses. The proposal does not define what “significant” means, another area of heartburn for analysts, as […]
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