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2. Significant Accounting Policies
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6 Months Ended |
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Jun. 30, 2012
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| Significant Accounting Policies [Text Block] |
2. Significant
Accounting Policies
The
preparation of consolidated financial statements in
conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates
and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets
and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and
liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial
statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses
during the reporting period. These judgments are difficult as
matters that are inherently uncertain directly impact their
valuation and accounting. Actual results may vary from
management’s estimates and assumptions. The
Company’s significant accounting policies are disclosed
in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2011 filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission.
Recent
Accounting Standards
In
May 2011, the FASB issued ASU 2011-04, “Fair Value
Measurement (Topic 820) – Amendments to Achieve Common
Fair Value Measurement and Disclosure Requirements in U.S.
GAAP and IFRSs.” This ASU is the result of
joint efforts by the FASB and International Accounting
Standards Board (IASB) to develop a single, converged fair
value framework on how (not when) to measure fair value and
what disclosures to provide about fair value
measurements. The ASU is largely consistent with
existing fair value measurement principles in U.S. GAAP
(Topic 820), with many of the amendments made to eliminate
unnecessary wording differences between U.S. GAAP and
International Financial Reporting Standards
(IFRS). The amendments are effective for interim
and annual periods beginning after December 15, 2011 with
prospective application. Early application is not
permitted. The adoption of the new guidance did
not have a material impact on the Company’s
consolidated financial statements.
In
June 2011, the FASB issued ASU 2011-05, “Comprehensive
Income (Topic 220) – Presentation of Comprehensive
Income.” The objective of this ASU is to
improve the comparability, consistency and transparency of
financial reporting and to increase the prominence of items
reported in other comprehensive income by eliminating the
option to present components of other comprehensive income as
part of the statement of changes in stockholders’
equity. The amendments require that all non-owner
changes in stockholders’ equity be presented either in
a single continuous statement of comprehensive income or in
two separate but consecutive statements. The
single statement of comprehensive income should include the
components of net income, a total for net income, the
components of other comprehensive income, a total for other
comprehensive income, and a total for comprehensive
income. In the two-statement approach, the first
statement should present total net income and its components
followed consecutively by a second statement that should
present all the components of other comprehensive income, a
total for other comprehensive income, and a total for
comprehensive income. The amendments do not change
the items that must be reported in other comprehensive
income, the option for an entity to present components of
other comprehensive income either net of related tax effects
or before related tax effects, or the calculation or
reporting of earnings per share. The amendments in
this ASU should be applied retrospectively. The amendments
are effective for fiscal years and interim periods within
those years beginning after December 15,
2011. Early adoption is permitted because
compliance with the amendments is already permitted. The
amendments do not require transition
disclosures. As the guidance only amends the
presentation of the components of comprehensive income, the
adoption of the new guidance did not have a material impact
on the Company’s consolidated financial
statements.
In
September 2011, the FASB issued ASU 2011-08,
“Intangible – Goodwill and Other (Topic 350)
– Testing Goodwill for
Impairment.” The amendments in this ASU
permit an entity to first assess qualitative factors related
to goodwill to determine whether it is more likely than not
that the fair value of the reporting unit is less than its
carrying amount as a basis for determining whether it is
necessary to perform the two-step goodwill test described in
Topic 350. The more-likely-than-not threshold is
defined as having a likelihood of more than 50
percent. Under the amendments in this ASU, an
entity is not required to calculate the fair value of a
reporting unit unless the entity determines that it is more
likely than not that its fair value is less than its carrying
amount. The amendments in this ASU are effective
for annual and interim goodwill impairment tests performed
for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2011. Early
adoption is permitted, including for annual and interim
goodwill impairment tests performed as of a date before
September 15, 2011, if an entity’s financial statements
for the most recent annual or interim period have not yet
been issued. The adoption of the new guidance did
not have a material impact on the Company’s
consolidated financial statements.
In
December 2011, the FASB issued ASU 2011-11, “Balance
Sheet (Topic 210) – Disclosures about Offsetting Assets
and Liabilities.” This ASU requires entities
to disclose both gross information and net information about
both instruments and transactions eligible for offset in the
balance sheet and instruments and transactions subject to an
agreement similar to a master netting arrangement. An entity
is required to apply the amendments for annual reporting
periods beginning on or after January 1, 2013, and interim
periods within those annual periods. An entity should provide
the disclosures required by those amendments retrospectively
for all comparative periods presented. The company is
currently assessing the impact that ASU 2011-11 will have on
the Company’s consolidated financial statements.
In
December 2011, the FASB issued ASU 2011-12,
“Comprehensive Income (Topic 220) – Deferral of
the Effective Date for Amendments to the Presentation of
Reclassifications of Items Out of Accumulated Other
Comprehensive Income in Accounting Standards Update No.
2011-05.” The amendments are being made to
allow the Board time to redeliberate whether to present on
the face of the financial statements the effects of
reclassifications out of accumulated other comprehensive
income on the components of net income and other
comprehensive income for all periods presented. While the
Board is considering the operational concerns about the
presentation requirements for reclassification adjustments
and the needs of financial statement users for additional
information about reclassification adjustments, entities
should continue to report reclassifications out of
accumulated other comprehensive income consistent with the
presentation requirements in effect before ASU
2011-05. All other requirements in ASU 2011-05 are
not affected by ASU 2011-12, including the requirement to
report comprehensive income either in a single continuous
financial statement or in two separate but consecutive
financial statements. Public entities should apply these
requirements for fiscal years, and interim periods within
those years, beginning after December 15,
2011. The adoption of the new guidance did
not have a material impact on the Company’s
consolidated financial statements.
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