GIK – gift-in-kind valuation

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.

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:

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Jim Ulvog

Cost to develop one new drug

Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

How much does it cost for a pharmaceutical company to get one new drug onto the market? As with all variations of “what does it cost” questions the answer is complicated. Any such answer requires explanation of what the calculation means.

Other posts discussing this issue:

According to a 2016 study by Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, here is their calculation of what it takes to get one compound to the point of where it is approved for sale:

  • $1.395 billion – out-of-pocket costs – actual cash expended at the point approval is obtained to sell the compound
  • +$1.163 billion – “time costs”, in other words the capitalization of having to invest more than a billion dollars over many years – this represents the opportunity cost of having otherwise been able to invest that money in something else that would have produced a return earlier
  • =$2.558 billion – total capitalized cost at point of receiving approval to sell one compound
  • +0.312 billion – costs incurred for follow-up required by FDA as a condition of obtaining approval – this includes factors such as monitoring long-term side effects, monitoring safety, looking at new formulations or dosage strength
  • =$2.870 billion – total lifecycle costs to develop one new medicine that is approved by the FDA for sale

The study was based on a random selection of 106 drugs from 10 pharmaceutical companies. Since that is a random selection presumably the calculation would apply to all medicines.

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Jim Ulvog

More articles on GIK valuation. The issue isn’t going away.

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Nicola White, writing at Bloomberg Tax, has several articles following up on the GIK valuation issue after the veto of California AB 1181 by the governor. If you have been following the issue, you will want to check her recent writing.

End of this post discusses the departure from FASB of a project manager long involved with nonprofit rulemaking.

The articles, with a few highlights:

11/4/19 – Bloomberg Tax – Small Fixes Eyed for Charity Accounting as California Backs Off – Article describes why FASB is strongly resistant to any change in GIK valuation.

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Jim Ulvog

FASB provides outline for new disclosures on GIK

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On November 6, 2019, FASB discussed the GIK valuation project.

Back on August 21, 2019, FASB set the scope for the project to include only nonfinancial GIK with measurement (that means valuation) off the table. Staff was directed to work toward an exposure draft (ED) that would address only presentation and disclosure. That means an ED will only describe how GIK is presented on the statement of activity and what information is explained in the notes.

According to minutes of the 11/6/19 meeting, available here, FASB ratified that previous scope.

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Jim Ulvog

Governor vetoes AB 1181. More details and background on override.

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On Saturday October 12, 2019, Governor Newsom vetoed California AB 1181. The bill would require charities filing financial statements with the state Registry of Charitable Trusts to value donated medicine at the fair value in the market the medicine would be distributed.

Essentially this would have required charities to use values in the international market instead of the U.S. market.

The governor announce a list of bills he signed and vetoed. You can find the list here. By my count he signed 69 and vetoed 58 on Saturday.

Veto message

The governor’s veto message can be read here. In it he said:

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Jim Ulvog

California Assembly concurs with changes to AB 1181 by California Senate.

California state capitol building. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

AB 1181 was approved by California Assembly on a 56 to 0 vote.  Their vote concurs with changes by the Senate yesterday, which means the bill has been passed by the legislature.

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Jim Ulvog

No GAAP violation but charitable solicitations are misleading – – Preliminary Decision issued for appeal of California AG’s Cease & Desist Order against MAP International, Food for the Poor, and Catholic Medical Mission Board.

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A Preliminary Decision has been written by the administrative law judge (ALJ) hearing the appeal over the California Attorney General’s cease and desist order (C&DO) against MAP International (MAP), Food for the Poor (FFP), and Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB).

I have obtained and read a copy of the Preliminary Decision for each of the charities.

 

Top line summary:  The ALJ concluded the charities did not violate GAAP in their accounting but did find their charitable solicitations were misleading and deceptive.

This will be a long read at over 3,400 words so you might want to get a fresh cup of coffee.

Two other notes. References to “Complainant” mean the California Attorney General.  This post will focus on the content of the decisions with lots of quotations and minimal interpretation. Several longer posts are needed to interpret, explain, and describe the implication of this case. I may add more discussion later. As I see others discuss this case, I’ll try to link to those discussions.

After describing the decisions, responses from each charity are listed.

Next steps?

I’m a bit fuzzy on the where this goes from here. It is seems obvious to me that the ruling is not yet effective.  I will string together a bunch of guesses on the next steps. Anyone bold enough to correct my wildly aimed guesses is welcome to do so.

So here go my guesses – – I think the decision will not go into effect until it is accepted or modified by the Attorney General.  So my guess is the AG will issue a letter declaring the Preliminary Decision in effect or reissue a modified C&DO or take some other specified action to make the decision effective. I’ll guess some sort of additional communication is also necessary to address a variety of technical issues not covered in the decision, such as address to send the check, contact point for future communications, consequences of violating the C&DO, and notice of appeal options.

The Preliminary Decisions say the charities must pay the penalty 30 days after the effective date. There is a separate requirement to provide a copy of the decision to all officers, directors, and employees within 15 days of the effective date.

Since one charity (MAP) indicates in their response to me that they will appeal, I’ll guess their appeal will be filed soon after the effective date, well before that 15 day time frame expires. I’ll also make an even bigger guess that given the strength of the proposed sanction on how to refer to program ratios, the other charities will also file an appeal.

 

Background on timing

In December 2018, the ALJ gave verbal explanation that he would rule in favor of the charities on the issue of whether the their financial statements complied with GAAP.

In January and February 2019 additional written briefs were submitted by the Attorney General (AG) and charities on whether the written appeals sent to citizens of the state were accurate or misleading.

On April 24, 2019 additional oral arguments were heard.

Then on May 24, 2019 the administrative law judge (ALJ) issued his preliminary ruling for each of the cease and desist orders.

 

Food for the Poor

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Jim Ulvog

Minor revisions to California AB 1181, with bill re-referred to Senate Judiciary Committee.

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On June 28, 2019, the Senate Judiciary Committee made some minor changes to AB 1181. In one sentence, the bill under consideration would require charities to recognize gifts in kind at the fair value in the location where the items will likely be distributed if the items have a geographic restriction.

Comment at the legislature’s website says:

From committee chair, with author’s amendments: Amend, and re-refer to committee. Read second time, amended, and re-referred to Com. on JUD.

I am not quite sure how to read that, but think it means the author made some changes, probably at the suggestion of the committee chair, the bill was technically put back to the committee after that change, the committee made additional changes and the bill was technically put back to the committee again.

All that to say there were minor changes to the proposed bill.

Based on the “compare versions” tab at the website, changes made at this point include:

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Jim Ulvog

What is the specific, focused target of California AB 1181?

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Update – Mark Hrywna (@mhrywna) tweeted on 6/17/19 the Senate Judiciary committee has scheduled a hearing on AB 1181 on 7/9/19.

After attending CalCPA’s Not-for-Profit Organization conference last week and talking to a small group of my CPA colleagues, I have two thoughts on regulatory attention currently focused on the valuation of donated medicine.  Let me provided two questions which will focus my comments:

  • What is the primary concern of the regulators?
  • What is the specific, focused target of California AB 1181?

Previous post discussed the first question.

As I mentioned in that post, I have long wanted to develop an extensive discussion on the main accounting issues found in the California AG’s three cease and desist orders along with several accounting issues raised in their January 2019 settlement and May 2019 litigation.

That full discussion would have ended up somewhere around 3 or 5 times longer than these two posts. I won’t have time in the foreseeable future to write such an extended discussion. This pair of posts, at over 2,600 words, will have to do.

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Jim Ulvog

What is the primary, core concern of the AG community over charity financial statements?

What, oh what could be the core issue for charity regulators in their recent enforcement efforts? Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

After attending CalCPA’s Not-for-Profit Organization conference last week and talking to a number of my CPA colleagues, I have two thoughts. (Yeah, yeah, I obviously don’t think much if I only have two thoughts after a full day of great presentations.)

Let me offer two questions which provide a way to focus my thoughts:

  • What is the primary concern of the regulators?
  • What is the specific, focused target of California AB 1181?

I have long wanted to develop an extensive discussion on multiple accounting issues found in the California AG’s three cease and desist orders. I would also like to discuss the host of accounting and auditing issues that are explicit or implied in the January 2019 settlement and the May 2019 litigation. It would be fun for me and informative for readers of this blog to dive deep into the wide range of issues raised by the AG.

That discussion would have probably run something in the range of 6,000 or 10,000 words, or perhaps longer.

I have not had the time to go into that extensive detail and don’t anticipate having that much spare time in the near future.

Instead, I will describe in the next post what I perceive is the very precise, very specific target of AB 1181 from the California Assembly and in this post will describe my perception of the key concern for the regulators.

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Jim Ulvog

Update on the charity that settled in January 2019 with the California Attorney General

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Went browsing around the web last night and found the settlement agreement for the AG’s case against the Giving Children Hope charity. Yesterday’s post discussed that case at length.

The National Association of State Charity Officials has a reprint of the California AG’s press release.

Included in the article is a link to the signed Assurance of Voluntary Compliance., which was approved by a judge on January 22, 2019.

Following are a few of the highlights from the signed agreement. In particular, the agreement fills in some of the details I was wondering about.

Remember my previous comment that I could see no reason one particular board member was included in the case?  He was chair of the board from 2014 through 2016, according to paragraph 2. On the settlement agreement, he signed as chairman on behalf of the charity which agreed to dissolve itself.

The CPA cited in the case provided accounting services to GCH from January 2014 through June 2017 (para 2).

In paragraph 10a the AG asserts GCH had at least 25 transactions in which it had one of two controlled subsidiaries purchase medicine from a named wholesaler in the Netherlands for a “very minimal price” and then had the controlled charities donate the meds back to GCH.

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Jim Ulvog

California AG settlement with charity for valuation of GIK

What is the proper valuation of a pallet of medicine purchased on the international market? Image of pharmaceutical warehouse courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Back on January 29, 2019, the California Attorney General announced a settlement with a charity for financial reporting which was misleading because of the valuation of donated pharmaceuticals.

Although the settlement is four months old and thus counts as ‘old news’, it is worth discussing as an indication of the level of concern the AG has for valuing GIK.

The AG’s press release: Attorney General Becerra Announces $410,000 Settlement with Giving Children Hope, After the Charity Engaged in a Misleading Reporting Scheme.

The settlement consists of $400,000 from the charity and $10,000 from four named individuals.

A page on the charity’s website comments on the settlement: Giving Children Hope’s Settlement Resolution.

The charity says its insurance company agreed to pay the $400,000. The charity asserts the penalty was “not paid from donated dollars of program funds.” That would be a technically true statement because the insurance company would have cut the check and not the charity.

The charity also said there were “no fines or penalties levied against” the charity. On one hand I suppose that is correct because an agreement to pay four hundred thousand dollars is not the same as a fine or penalty. I don’t think that’s quite correct for two reasons. First, the AG doesn’t collect voluntary contributions; the payment was made as settlement of civil charges. Second, insurance companies don’t write checks out of the generosity of their heart; they settle the liability of their insureds.

I think most people looking at the situation would agree the charity was hit with a $400,000 penalty.

Individual penalties

The press release says four individuals will also pay $10,000 in total. It is not clear from the press release whether this is a joint and several liability or each person will be billed individually for $2,500.

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Jim Ulvog

Committee analysis of California AB 1181

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Update: The Senate rules committee assigned the bill to the Judiciary committee a few days ago, 5/22/19.

The Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection prepared a seven page analysis of AB 1181. The proposed bill, which has since passed the Assembly, would change accounting for GIK when the donor says the donated materials may only be distributed overseas.

Financial reports filed with the California Attorney General and solicitations to citizens of California would have to comply with the new accounting.

The following will be a loooong read, but the analysis by the committee is helpful for understanding the bill. There is good background in the discussion.

I will quote the analysis and provide some comments along the way. I quote the material without permission because it is a public document.

Highlights include the AG describing a successful enforcement action in which a charity turned a $225,000 purchase of meds into a $34,900,000 donation. Also, a representative of the California Society of CPAs makes an invalid argument against the bill.

From the committee analysis:

2) Author’s statement: According to the author, “AB 1181 addresses reported practices by some charities that grossly inflate the value of their publicly reported revenue and program expense, especially with respect to in-kind donations of pharmaceutical drugs. Overvaluation of the gifts-in-kind leads to an inflated total revenue for the charity which makes the charity appear more successful and efficient to the public and potential donors. An inflated revenue, in turn, can serve as a basis to hide excessive fundraising and administrative costs because these expenses would now appear smaller in comparison to the inflated total revenue. Inflated reports may also increase the charity’s ranking by charity watchdogs. This type of accounting practice is manipulative, misleading, and inconsistent with state law that safeguards transparency, fair reporting, and ensure a level playing field for honest charities that report accurate data to the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts.”

At an overall level, the statement above provides a survey of the regulator’s and author’s concern regarding overvaluation of GIKs.

In particular, notice the last comment saying charities without large volumes of donated materials are at a disadvantage when appealing for donations from consumers.

Back to the analysis:

3) Addresses longstanding concerns with overvaluation of gift-in-kind donations: Under California law, the AG oversees registered charities to ensure that funds received are properly managed and devoted to charitable programs. The office derives its authority from the Charitable Purposes Act, which was originally enacted in 1959. This law generally requires every person or entity that holds or solicits property for charitable purposes in California to file specified documents and information, including annual financial statements, with the AG. These reports are in turn used by the AG to investigate and litigate cases of charity fraud and mismanagement by trustees and directors of charities. This bill seeks to address longstanding concerns with charities overvaluing gift-in-kind donations, a type of charitable donation where goods and services are given instead of cash to buy needed goods or services.

As far back as 2012, Forbes reported on a multi-state effort to crack down on nonprofits who greatly exaggerate the value of donated goods to make themselves look more successful than they actually are.

“In theory, there’s nothing wrong with gift-in-kind itself. A donation to a worthy charity is a donation to a worthy charity. The problem comes largely with the valuation. Cash is easily valued at, well, the amount of cash. But freed of the precision that cash provides, some charities value donated goods at many times the market price. The overvaluation makes a charity seem larger and more popular than it is, and also increases–artificially–financial efficiency ratios that many donors look at.” (Barrett, Charity Regulators (Finally) Eye Overvaluation Of Donated Goods, Forbes (Nov. 8, 2012).)

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Jim Ulvog

Other discussion of A.B. 1181, which would change accounting for GIK limited for distribution outside U.S.

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There has not been much visible discussion of California Assembly Bill #1181 (AB 1181). Here are the notable items I’ve seen.

Mark Hrywna reported on May 14, 2019 that the Bill to Recalculate GIK Value Advances In California. That is the only detailed article I’ve seen on the bill.

ECFA provides reaction from FASB and ECFA: California Bill Would Impose New Burdens on Nonprofits and Undermine National Accounting Standards.

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Jim Ulvog

Has time run out on cleaning up GIK valuation?

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Looks like the time to clean up the GIK valuation issue might be gone.

After reading about California AB 1181, I will guess you rather strongly dislike the proposed legislation that is rapidly making its way through the legislature. You probably have some serious heartburn about the bill.

In recent years, there has been major enforcement effort by:

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Jim Ulvog