Summaries / Status

Summary

This Statement establishes standards for defining and reporting on the financial reporting entity. It also establishes standards for reporting participation in joint ventures. It applies to financial reporting by primary governments, governmental joint ventures, jointly governed organizations, and other stand-alone governments; and it applies to the separately issued financial statements of governmental component units. In addition, this Statement should be applied to governmental and nongovernmental component units when they are included in a governmental financial reporting entity.

The financial reporting entity consists of (a) the primary government, (b) organizations for which the primary government is financially accountable, and (c) other organizations for which the nature and significance of their relationship with the primary government are such that exclusion would cause the reporting entity's financial statements to be misleading or incomplete.

The definition of the reporting entity is based primarily on the notion of financial accountability. A primary government is financially accountable for the organizations that make up its legal entity. It is also financially accountable for legally separate organizations if its officials appoint a voting majority of an organization's governing body and either it is able to impose its will on that organization or there is a potential for the organization to provide specific financial benefits to, or to impose specific financial burdens on, the primary government. A primary government may also be financially accountable for governmental organizations that are fiscally dependent on it.

A primary government has the ability to impose its will on an organization if it can significantly influence the programs, projects, or activities of, or the level of services performed or provided by, the organization. A financial benefit or burden relationship exists if the primary government (a) is entitled to the organization's resources; (b) is legally obligated or has otherwise assumed the obligation to finance the deficits of, or provide financial support to, the organization; or (c) is obligated in some manner for the debt of the organization.

Some organizations are included as component units because of their fiscal dependency on the primary government. An organization is fiscally dependent on the primary government if it is unable to adopt its budget, levy taxes or set rates or charges, or issue bonded debt without approval by the primary government.

The financial statements of the reporting entity generally should allow the users to distinguish between the primary government and its component units. To accomplish this goal, the financial statements should generally communicate information about the component units and their relationships with the primary government rather than create the perception that the primary government and all of its component units are one legal entity.

Most component units should be included in the financial reporting entity by discrete presentation. Discrete presentation entails reporting component unit financial data in one or more columns separate from the financial data of the primary government. Certain information should be disclosed about each major component unit included in the component units column. The required information may be presented by using more than one column in the general purpose financial statements (GPFS) for the component units and either including appropriate combining statements for the discretely presented component units in the reporting entity's GPFS or presenting appropriate condensed financial statements of the discretely presented component units in the notes to the reporting entity's financial statements.

Some component units, despite being legally separate from the primary government, are so intertwined with the primary government that they are, in substance, the same as the primary government and should be reported as part of the primary government. That is, the component unit's balances and transactions should be reported in a manner similar to the balances and transactions of the primary government itself. This method of inclusion is known as blending.

The notes to the reporting entity's financial statements should distinguish between information pertaining to the primary government (including its blended component units) and that of its discretely presented component units. The reporting entity's financial statements should make those component unit disclosures that are essential to fair presentation of the financial reporting entity's GPFS. The notes to the financial statements also should include a brief description of the component units and their relationships to the primary government as well as information about how the separate financial statements of individual component units may be obtained.

This Statement also requires certain disclosures about the entity's relationships with organizations other than component units, including related organizations, joint ventures, jointly governed organizations, and component units of another government with characteristics of a joint venture or jointly governed organization. This Statement also provides financial statement display requirements for joint ventures in which the participating government has an equity interest.

This Statement is effective for financial statements for periods beginning after December 15, 1992. Earlier application is encouraged.

Unless otherwise specified, pronouncements of the GASB apply to financial reports of all state and local governmental entities, including public benefit corporations and authorities, public employee retirement systems, and governmental utilities, hospitals, colleges, and universities. Paragraph 9 discusses the applicability of this Statement.