ASBJ 14
Abolished
Partial Amendments to Accounting Standard for Retirement Benefits
Partial Amendments to Accounting Standard for Retirement Benefits is part of the Japan GAAP framework.
Abolished Standard (Historical Reference)
ASBJ Statement No. 14 was the second stage of Japan's staged retirement benefits reform (following No. 3, and preceding No. 19). It has since been ABOLISHED (廃止) and fully absorbed into the comprehensive ASBJ Statement No. 26, Accounting Standard for Retirement Benefits.
This document is retained for historical reference, continuing the historical transition account begun in the ASBJ Statement No. 3 document.
Current Standard
ASBJ Statement No. 26 – Accounting Standard for Retirement Benefits 1
Conceptual Framework Linkage
The second stage of a three-stage retirement benefits reform
ASBJ Statement No. 14 represented the SECOND stage (Part 2) of Japan's INCREMENTAL retirement benefits reform – following EARLIER Statement No. 3 (Part 1) and PRECEDING Statement No. 19 (Part 3) – before the ENTIRE staged process CULMINATED in the comprehensive ASBJ Statement No. 26. Like Statement No. 3, it has since been ABOLISHED, its substance FULLY absorbed into the current, comprehensive standard.
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Scope – What Part 2 Historically Addressed
Companies sponsoring retirement benefit plans
Like the OTHER stages of this staged reform, Statement No. 14 HISTORICALLY applied to companies sponsoring RETIREMENT BENEFIT plans – both defined benefit pension arrangements and Japan's distinctively COMMON lump-sum retirement allowance plans – for their employees.
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Continuing the Staged Reform From Statement No. 3
Building incrementally toward a comprehensive standard
Where Statement No. 3 addressed an EARLY stage of retirement benefit reform, Statement No. 14 REPRESENTED a FURTHER, more DEVELOPED stage – REFINING and EXTENDING the reform's scope, WITHOUT yet reaching the FULL, comprehensive framework that would eventually arrive with ASBJ Statement No. 26. This INCREMENTAL, multi-stage approach – reforming a complex TOPIC area through SUCCESSIVE partial amendments rather than a single wholesale rewrite – is a DISTINCTIVE, recurring feature of J-GAAP standard-setting history (see the companion ASBJ Statement No. 3 poster for the FULLER context of this pattern).
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Moving Toward Fuller Balance Sheet Recognition
A general direction shared with international reform of the same period
As part of the BROADER, MULTI-STAGE reform direction, this stage of the process moved Japanese practice TOWARD FULLER recognition of a company's NET retirement benefit obligation DIRECTLY on the Balance Sheet – REDUCING reliance on OFF-BALANCE-SHEET tracking of items such as UNRECOGNISED actuarial gains/losses and unrecognised PRIOR service cost, which had previously been permitted to remain UNRECOGNISED for extended periods under older Japanese practice.
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Actuarial Gains/Losses and Prior Service Cost – the Direction of Travel
Reducing deferral, moving toward more immediate recognition
The STAGED reform progressively MOVED Japanese practice AWAY from DEFERRED recognition mechanisms for ACTUARIAL gains/losses and PRIOR SERVICE COST (analogous in SPIRIT to the "corridor approach" once used internationally under an EARLIER version of IAS 19) TOWARD recognising these items MORE FULLY and MORE PROMPTLY within Net Assets and/or the Statement of Income – a DIRECTION OF TRAVEL that MIRRORS the SAME broad shift the IASB itself made through its OWN 2011 amendments to IAS 19, which ELIMINATED the corridor approach INTERNATIONALLY around a broadly SIMILAR period.
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Why It Was Abolished – Absorption Into ASBJ Statement No. 26
Consolidation into a single, comprehensive standard
Once the ASBJ completed the FULL, comprehensive reform of retirement benefit accounting – culminating in ASBJ Statement No. 26 – the EARLIER, INCREMENTAL partial amendments (Statement No. 3, Statement No. 14, and eventually much of Statement No. 19) became REDUNDANT, their substance having been FULLY incorporated and further refined within the SINGLE comprehensive standard. Statement No. 14 was therefore ABOLISHED (廃止), consistent with GOOD standard-setting practice.
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Worked Example – the Reform's Direction in Outline
From deferred, off-balance-sheet tracking to fuller recognition
Example: Unrecognised actuarial losses, before and after the reform
A company sponsoring a defined benefit plan had, under OLDER practice, a significant balance of UNRECOGNISED actuarial LOSSES being deferred and amortised gradually over future periods, rather than recognised immediately.
Through the STAGED reform (including this Statement's contribution), Japanese practice MOVED toward recognising SUCH amounts MORE FULLY and PROMPTLY – a direction that CULMINATED, under TODAY's ASBJ Statement No. 26, in a framework where the NET retirement benefit LIABILITY (or asset) recognised on the Balance Sheet reflects a FAR MORE COMPLETE picture of the underlying obligation than the OLDER, more DEFERRAL-ORIENTED practice had provided.
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Current Treatment – ASBJ Statement No. 26
Today's authoritative retirement benefits framework
Companies TODAY apply ASBJ Statement No. 26 in its ENTIRETY, addressing recognition and measurement of retirement benefit obligations, plan assets, actuarial gains/losses, and prior service cost – the CURRENT, comprehensive successor incorporating the FULL substance of Statements No. 3, No. 14, and No. 19's staged reform history.
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Disclosure Requirements (Current, Post-Abolition)
What applies today instead
Full compliance with ASBJ Statement No. 26's recognition, measurement, and disclosure requirementsNo separate reference to the now-abolished Statement No. 14 is required or appropriate
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Critical Judgments
Where judgement matters most (historically and today)
HISTORICAL JUDGEMENTS
Correctly sequencing application of the staged partial amendments during the reform period
CURRENT JUDGEMENTS
Actuarial assumptions and measurement judgements now governed entirely by ASBJ Statement No. 26
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Relationship to IAS/IFRS – the IAS 19 Parallel
A shared international direction of travel
Japan's STAGED move away from deferred actuarial gain/loss recognition BROADLY PARALLELS the IASB's OWN 2011 amendments to IAS 19, which ELIMINATED the "corridor approach" internationally, requiring immediate recognition of REMEASUREMENTS through Other Comprehensive Income. While the SPECIFIC mechanics and TIMING of Japan's staged reform DIFFER from the IASB's OWN single amendment, the underlying DIRECTION – toward FULLER, more IMMEDIATE Balance Sheet recognition of retirement benefit obligations – reflects a broadly SHARED international standard-setting trend of the SAME period.
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Statement Mapping
Where retirement benefit accounting now lands
EventStatement(s) affectedNotes
Retirement benefit obligation and plan assetsBSGoverned entirely by the current ASBJ Statement No. 26
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Related Standards
Cross-reference map
StandardConnection
ASBJ Statement No. 3Part 1 of the same staged reform history – also now abolished
ASBJ Statement No. 26Successor, comprehensive standard – the current authoritative J-GAAP retirement benefits framework
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Quick-Reference Glossary
Unrecognised actuarial gains/losses (legacy concept)
Actuarial gains/losses historically permitted to remain deferred off the Balance Sheet, before the staged reform moved toward fuller, more immediate recognition.
Abolished (廃止)
The formal ASBJ status indicating a standard's substance has been fully absorbed into a successor standard, with the original no longer separately in force.
Financial statement key (Japan GAAP terminology)
BS Balance Sheet (貸借対照表) P&L Statement of Income / Profit and Loss Statement (損益計算書) Net Assets 純資産の部 SCNA Statement of Changes in Net Assets (株主資本等変動計算書) SCF Statement of Cash Flows (キャッシュ・フロー計算書)