Accounting

Federal mileage rates for 2023.

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The IRS has issued mileage rates for 2023.

Starting January 1, 2023, the standard mileage rates will be:

  • 65.5 cents per mile for business use, which is up from 62.5 cents for the second half of 2022 and 58.5 cents for the first half of 2022. The business mileage rate was 56 cents in 2021.
  • 22 cents per mile for medical and moving, which is the same as the second half of 2020 compared to 18 cents for the first half of 2022.
  • 14 cents per mile for services provided to charitable organizations, which rate was set by Congress in legislation.

Rates were published in Notice 2022- 234 – Optional Standard Mileage Rates.

IR2022-234 also states:

“These rates apply to electric and hybrid-electric automobiles, as well as gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.

“The standard mileage rate for business use is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile. The rate for medical and moving purposes is based on the variable costs.

“It is important to note that under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, taxpayers cannot claim a miscellaneous itemized deduction for unreimbursed employee travel expenses. Taxpayers also cannot claim a deduction for moving expenses, unless they are members of the Armed Forces on active duty moving under orders to a permanent change of station. For more details see Moving Expenses for Members of the Armed Forces.

“Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates.”

SEC releases proposed rules for public company emissions disclosures. Will create full employment for CPAs.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission issued proposed rules for emissions risk accounting and disclosures by public companies. After the 60 day comment window the SEC will work on final rules.

The proposal creates three areas for measurement and disclosure. Scope 1 is emissions from a company’s own operations, whether it is manufacturing cars, producing coal, or running a bank. Scope 2 is emissions generated from the energy consumed by company as an input to their operations. This could be the electricity to operate the branches and computers of a bank or it could be all of the coal consumed to produce steel.

As if that does not stretch your brain far enough, there is Scope 3. Those are the missions of all of the vendors to a company and all the consumers of its products. This is not just immediate vendors and direct consumers. This includes the emissions of the vendors’ vendors and their vendors, all the way back to when raw materials were first pulled out of the ground.

This includes emissions generated by your customers as they use your products and also your customers’ customers’ emissions. This goes all the way to the end consumer. Furthermore, this is life cycle costs.

As a brain stretcher, for a utility providing natural gas to consumers Scope 3 would include the emissions generated as consumers heat their home. The lifecycle is very short since the gas will be used as soon as it arrives at the houses.

Brief overview of new accounting rules on the horizon – 11/21.

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To help auditors in the CPA community, the AIPCA peer review staff publishes PR Prompts, a newsletter with information for firms providing audits, review, compilations, and other attestation services.

The newsletter is unbranded and AICPA gives explicit permission to peer reviewers to put their logo and branding information on the newsletter. Those of us who are peer reviewers have specific permission to send it to our clients.

The following comments are provided to you courtesy of the AICPA.  I gratefully acknowledge their work in preparing this info and gladly share it with you. 

For ease of reading, I will not put all the following material in quotations.

One section provides background on new accounting rules that will be effective over the next few years.

PR Prompts – Fall 2021:

Standards with later effective dates to be thinking about

The following ASUs are not effective for NFPs in 2021; however, entities should still be aware of them so they can evaluate and adequately plan for implementation when the time comes.

ASU No. 2020-07, Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958): Presentation and Disclosure by Not-for-Profit Entities for Contributed Nonfinancial Assets

While ASU No. 2020-07 is not effective until 2022, NFPs may be considering early adoption. The ASU requires that an NFP (1) present contributed nonfinancial assets as a separate line item in the statement of activities, apart from contributions of cash and other financial assets and (2) disclose the following:

Brief overview of new accounting rules for 12/31/21 financial statements.

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To help auditors in the CPA community, the AIPCA peer review staff publishes PR Prompts, a newsletter with information for firms providing audits, review, compilations, and other attestation services.

The newsletter is unbranded and AICPA gives explicit permission to peer reviewers to put their logo and branding information on the newsletter. Those of us who are peer reviewers have specific permission to send it to our clients.

The following comments are provided to you courtesy of the AICPA.  I gratefully acknowledge their work in preparing this info and gladly share it with you. 

For ease of reading, I will not put all the following material in quotations.

One section of the newsletter provides background on new accounting rules that will be required in the near term:

PR Prompts – Fall 2021:

Upcoming accounting standards updates (ASUs) not-for-profits (NFPs) should be familiar with at the end of 2021

The following is a summary of FASB ASUs with initial effective dates for most NFPs beginning in calendar-year 2021 and for 2020-2021 fiscal year-ends, or with effective dates that were deferred to 2021. Also, summarized are ASUs on the horizon with effective dates for most NFPs in 2022 and later. Additional information and guidance related to a number of these ASUs can be found in this AICPA article.

2020 giving trends for churches and religious charities based on ECFA survey.

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Finding data on prior year contribution trends early enough in the year to have analytical value in a review or audit has long been a challenge. Usable data for 2020 is now available in March. This is current enough to allow leaders in churches and ministries analyze the 2020 financial results in time for it to be actionable.

Throughout the pandemic the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) has been conducting quarterly surveys of its members. Lots of data has been gathered and processed.

On 3/4/21, ECFA published the results of their survey of full year 2020 revenue and expense trends compared to 2019. They have graciously made the results of the survey available for free. You can find it on this page of Feature Surveys. Click on the “Free Download” button beneath the Remarkable Resilience survey report dated March 2021.

The survey is based on responses from 559 churches and 730 religious nonprofits. That is a total of 1,289 responses. ECFA has lots of subsectors for its membership. For those sectors with 20 or more responses, the survey aggregates and reports results.

Who would benefit from looking at this survey? Two groups.

First, finance teams and senior leadership of churches and religious nonprofits to see financial results for 2020 of a large group of their peers. This provides an incredible opportunity to see how other organizations are doing.

Second, CPAs performing reviews or audits of churches religious not-for-profit organizations can easily find industrywide information to use as a benchmark. As mentioned earlier, financial information is usually published long after most of the reviews and audits have been released. It is rare I can find anything that is actually usable.

High-level results from the ECFA survey are summarized into three broad categories:

Increased disclosures for gifts-in-kind required by new accounting rule.

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In September 2020 the Financial Accounting Standard Board issued ASU 2020-07.  Formal title for the document is Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958) – Presentation and Disclosures by Not-for-Profit Entities for Contributed Nonfinancial Assets.

Contributed nonfinancial assets means gifts-in-kind. The ASU does not apply to donated services or donated financial assets such as stocks and bonds.

ASU 2020-07 will only change the presentation of GIK on the statement of activity and require additional disclosures in the notes. It will not require any change to the valuation of donated pharmaceuticals (accountants call that recognition).

You can get your own copy of ASU 2020-07 here.

(Cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update, since this issue is of interest to auditors of charities.)

Statement of activity

The total of GIK will need to be presented as a separate line within the revenue & contribution section of the statement of activity, separate from donated cash and any donated financial assets.

Note disclosures

There are a number of new note disclosures which will be required for gifts-in-kind:

Economic destruction from lockdown continues to expand.

There is severe danger that a growing number of businesses are going to look like this over the next few months. Abandoned Safeway store [01] by Ben Schumin is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
 

Going concern thoughts for accountants:  I have stopped cross posting all my comments on the pandemic to this blog. The focus here is accounting and attestation issues.

The following conversation is worth listing here, so you can bring into consideration what is going on in the broader economy as you ponder your client’s going concern assessments. The economic damage from the shutdown is an issue for audits, reviews, and comps.

You might pay particular attention to comments by  the Atlanta Fed on near-term GDP forecasts.

 

The damage from the lockdown is spreading. More news is emerging about the devastation that took place in just the first full month of the closure.

The damage will continue to grow the longer the shutdown continues. At some point it will start compounding, growing at a faster rate out of proportion to the time that is passing. Keeping the economy closed now is unnecessarily so the compounding damage is a choice.

Merely a few of the articles in recent days:

  • Guess on GDP shrinkage in next quarter
  • Disproportionate number of poorer households hit by job losses
  • Collapse of tax revenue in New York state
  • Collapse of home sales in Southern California
  • Another retail chain announce store closures and another announces liquidation

It is imperative to reopen the economy in full, not just for ‘curb-side delivery.’ If we don’t open soon, I fear the following articles will be mild in comparison to what we will see in the future.

This discussion will be posted on several of my blogs.

5/16/20 – Fox Business – US GDP could sink over 40%: Atlanta Fed – Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is forecasting a 42.8% drop in GDP for the second quarter of  2020.

Forgiveness of PPP loans.

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There are lots of details and nuances to the federal Paycheck Protection Program. I’m not up to speed on PPP so I won’t be commenting on the program, especially the forgiveness rules.

There is a growing volume of information on the ‘net describing the program. Here are some resources you can check out to learn more.

SBA forgiveness application

5/15/20 – Small Business Administration – Paycheck Protection Program Loan Forgiveness Application,” Small Business Administration, – The SBA published the text of the forgiveness application.

Commentary on forgiveness application

Issues for auditors to consider as result of pandemic.

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This economic catastrophe is giving auditors lots to think about during audits. Reviews and comps are also affected.

Going concern will be a major issue on all engagements for a long time to come.

Goodwill impairment will be more important and more difficult.

Finally, consider that the rules for PPP eligibility are being rewritten after the first round of loans have already been approved by SBA and funded.

Going concern

4/23/20 – Bloomberg tax – Dave & Buster’s “Going Concern” Warning Signals Wave to Come – Management issued a going concern warning. For nonaccountants this means the company concluded “there was a substantial risk that the entertainment company would not survive the next 12 months.”

Article reports many companies are doing a much more in-depth analysis of the going concern assessment.

Economic damage from shutdown – 4/15.

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A few more articles on damage we are seeing from the economic shutdown.

Guess on California unemployment rate

April 2020 – Eberhardt School of Business, University of Pacific – Initial Estimates of Employment Impacts of Covid-19 Pandemic – The school of business estimates an unemployment rate of 18.8% in California for the month of May 2020.

This is in contrast to 2010 rate of 12.2% and 2019 rate of 4.0%.

Likely increase in bankruptcies

4/13/20 – Washington Examiner – Pandemic likely to exceed Great Recession in number of bankruptcies – Economists from a leftist think tank and a conservative think tank both guess that the  number of bankruptcies from the current shutdown of the economy will exceed the number from the Great Recession.

News For CPAs During The Pandemic: FASB guidance on leases – 4/14.

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More info for CPAs. FASB releases a Q&Q for lease issues.  Another round of layoffs seems to be appearing.

4/10/20 – FASB published the following Staff Q&A – Topic 842 and topic 840: Accounting for lease concessions related to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – If this issue affects your clients, you need to read the guidance.

News For CPAs During The Pandemic: AICPA guidance on accounting, reporting, and auditing – 4/10

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Guidance from AICPA can help with financial reporting and auditing. Also, there is a need for COBOL programmers.

If you had not noticed, the California Society of CPAs is offering a lot of CPE webcasts on tax and auditing issues during the pandemic. Many of them are free. Yeah, no charge CPE. How ‘bout that?

4/8/20 – Journal of Accountancy – AICPA issues audit and accounting guidance FAQs on COVID-19 – The AICPA published a 21 page document on accounting and audit issues: Audit Matters and Auditor Reporting Issues Related to COVID?19

Guidance from SBA for faith-based charities applying for PPP loans.

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If you are in leadership or on the finance team of a faith-based not-for-profit organization, you really, really need to read the Faith-Based Organizations FAQ From The Small Business Administration:

(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

The document is dated 4/3/20.

Read this document if you have applied or are thinking about applying for a loan under the Paycheck Protection Program.

An issue in the back of many people’s mind is whether any federal assistance under this program will infringe on religious freedom. I think you will be quite pleasantly surprised by reading the FAQ.

Please read the article. You might want to make a copy for your file.

Articles for CPAs during the pandemic: Expect delay in lease effective date for private companies and NFPs – 4/9

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Big news from FASB yesterday. They are planning to postpone the new lease rules for private companies and most not-for-profit entities.

4/8/20 – Journal of Accountancy – FASB effective date delay proposals to include private company lease accounting and Wall Street Journal – FASB Proposes Delaying New Accounting Rules for Some Companies Because of Coronavirus – FASB is moving towards a deferral of revenue recognition that applies to a very narrow slice of companies. Also moving toward a deferral of new lease accounting for private companies and private not-for-profit organizations.