In Law360 Article, Angela Styles Analyzes Cost Accounting Standards Board’s Potential Conformance of CAS to GAAP

Law360 has published “Federal Cost Accounting Standards Are Inching Toward GAAP,” an article written by Akin Gump government contracts partner Angela Styles. The article analyzes a recent staff discussion paper from the Cost Accounting Standards Board (CASB), “on the potential conformance of seven of the 19 federal cost accounting standards, or CAS, to generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP.”

Styles begins by noting the differences between the CAS and GAAP, as outlined in the CASB paper. She writes that, while the CAS “were designed to provide protections to the federal government from the potential ‘effects of inconsistent or improper contractor cost accounting,’” GAAP “was created to record and present financial information for use internally to operate the business and externally for stakeholders, such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, shareholders and banks.”

The article then looks at the CASB’s efforts to “to rectify decades of longstanding differences between the CAS and GAAP.”

Styles concludes by observing that the CASB paper “is less than what Congress or federal contractors hoped to see, [but] it is a start and a small step toward decreasing the regulatory burden on federal contractors.” As a result, she writes, “it is the private sector’s turn to engage and provide details about the many changes that are needed.”

To read the full article, please click here.