Private companies will get a bit of a break when it comes to complying with the requirements of FIN 48.

The Private Company Financial Reporting Committee and the MACPA recently sent letters to the Financial Accounting Standards Board expressing their belief that private companies should be exempt from all requirements found in FASB Interpretation 48, also known as FIN 48 or “Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes.”

At its Oct. 1 meeting, the FASB agreed … sort of.

The FASB ruled that private companies do not have to comply with the disclosure requirements in paragraphs 21(a) and 21(b). Paragraph 21(a) requires a company to disclose “a tabular reconciliation of the total amounts of unrecognized tax benefits at the beginning and end” of each reporting period. Paragraph 21(b) requires a company to report “the total amount of unrecognized tax benefits that, if recognized, would affect the effective tax rate.”

Still, the FASB decided “that private companies should not be exempt from the other disclosure requirements of Interpretation 48.”

In a related decision, the FASB deferred FIN 48 for one year for private pass-through entities “based on the entity’s federal income tax status,” the board reported. The FASB’s staff will now determine “whether the proposed scope of the deferral is viable and will not create unintended consequences.”