Corporate Disclosure of the Decision to Change the Fiscal Year-End
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2000
Abstract
This paper investigates whether registrants comply with SEC rules designed to provide timely notification and transparent disclosure of the effects of a change in fiscal year-end. For a sample of 79 firms, the Form 8-K announcement of the change was filed late 25% of the time and no announcement was available for an additional 14% of the firms. In the subsequent Form 10-K, roughly half of the firms did not report operating results for both the transition period and a comparative period from the prior year, as required by the SEC. The rate of non-compliance was higher for firms audited by non-Big-6 firms. Non-compliance is more important if poor disclosure occurs in conjunction with income management. In this regard, we found an unusually high frequency of losses reported in the transition period that results from a fiscal year change (relative both to the firms' prior experience and to other COMPUSTAT firms).
Editor
Gary J. Previts
Publisher
Elsevier Science Inc.
City
New York
ISBN
0762307358
Repository Citation
Porter, T.L., Swanson, E.P., Wilkins, M.S. & Holder-Webb, L. (2000). Corporate disclosure of the decision to change the fiscal year-end. Research in Accounting Regulation, 14, 81-100.
Publication Information
Research in Accounting Regulation