The Scope Section of the Overall Subtopic establishes the pervasive scope for all Subtopics of the Compensation—Retirement Benefits Topic. Unless explicitly addressed within specific Subtopics, the following scope guidance applies to all Subtopics of the Compensation—Retirement Benefits Topic.
The guidance in the Compensation—Retirement Benefits Topic
applies to all employers, including not-for-profit entities (NFPs), that offer pension or other postretirement benefits to their employees, regardless of whether the benefit obligation is funded. NFPs should refer to Subtopic
958-715 when applying the provisions of this Topic.
The guidance in the Compensation—Retirement Benefits Topic applies to the following types of benefit arrangements:
- a
Any arrangement that is in substance a pension or other postretirement benefit plan, regardless of its form or the means or timing of its funding
- b
Written plans and unwritten plans whose existence is discernible either from a practice of paying pension or other postretirement benefits or from oral representations made to current or former employees
- c
Deferred compensation contracts with individual employees if those contracts, taken together, are equivalent to a plan that provides pension or other postretirement benefits
- d
Health and other welfare benefits expected to be provided to employees deemed to be on a disability retirement.
The guidance in this Topic also applies to settlement of all or a part of an employer's pension or other postretirement benefit obligation or curtailment of a pension or other postretirement benefit plan. The guidance applies to employers that provide pension or other postretirement benefits as part of a special termination benefit or special or contractual termination benefits not otherwise addressed in other Subtopics (for example, benefits paid at or before retirement and not paid out of a pension or other postretirement plan).
The guidance in this Topic does not apply to the following types of benefit arrangements:
- a
An employer's practice of providing pension or other postretirement benefits to selected employees under individual contracts with specific terms determined on an individual-by-individual basis. Those contracts shall be accounted for individually, following the terms of the contract. See Topic 710. - b
Postemployment benefits paid after employment but before retirement (for example, layoff benefits), unless payable from a pension or other postretirement plan. See Topic 712.
For purposes of preparing financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States, the Compensation—Retirement Benefits Topic includes no special provisions applicable to pension or other postretirement benefit plans or arrangements outside the United States. To the extent that those arrangements are in substance similar to pension or other postretirement benefit plans in the United States, they are subject to the provisions of this Topic.
The applicability of this Topic to those plans or arrangements is determined by the nature of the obligation and by the terms or conditions that define the amount of benefits to be paid, not by whether or how a plan is funded, whether benefits are payable at intervals or as a single amount, or whether the benefits are required by law or custom or are provided under a plan the employer has elected to sponsor.