 100 years of US GAAP for intangible itemsChristine A. Botosan, Jeffrey Mechanick and Joy Sy1 Chapter 3 in Handbook on Intangibles, 2026, pp 37-63 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: Debates about the financial reporting of intangible items span almost a century. As far back as the 1920s, US companies recorded intangible items on their financial statements but, even then, disagreement abounded about the appropriate financial reporting. For example, Owen (1923) concluded “Whether or not goodwill, when once placed on the books, should gradually be written off is a question about which there has been a great deal of argument but no agreement.” While the relative importance of intangible items in the economy has grown, the issues plaguing standard setters have not changed. Whether an intangible item is externally acquired or internally developed, standard setters wrestle with recognition, measurement, presentation, and disclosure issues. This chapter chronicles the development of US GAAP for intangible items—the opportunities, the challenges, the successes, and the failures. This historical context is intended to set the stage for further consideration by the accounting community about this seemingly ever-elusive issue because “[t]hose that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Keywords: US GAAP; Accounting for intangibles; FASB; Goodwill (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22045_3 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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