Reporting on employee benefits

Many employers spend considerable amounts of money on employee benefits in addition to the amounts they spend on salaries and wages. Employee benefits costing 30 percent of salaries and wages aren’t unusual. Two major kinds of employee benefits have been the subject of issues in financial reporting-defined benefit pensions and postretirement benefits other than pensions-resulting most recently in FASB, “Pensions” (SFAS No. 87) (FASB, 1985b), and FASB, “Postretirement Benefits” (SFAS No. 106) (FASB, 1990a).