The Financial Accounting Standards Board is proposing a solution to some unexpected complications that arose in the adoption of a new method for presenting other comprehensive income, or OCI.

FASB is proposing an update to accounting standards that addresses concerns that arose with implementation of ASU No. 2011-05, which was issued in July 2011. As companies adopted the new presentation method required by that standard, they spotted a complication with how to present items that are reclassified out of OCI.

OCI represents gains or losses that have not yet been realized, such as a gain in a security that is being held as an investment. When companies mark up or down the value of such investments each reporting period, they reflect that gain or loss not through earnings but through OCI, which is a component of equity. FASB wanted to give greater prominence to OCI and changes that flow to earnings by requiring companies to display OCI in the earning statement or in a statement immediately following.

Companies know how to reclassify such items to transfer them from equity to earnings, but preparers told FASB that some reclassification adjustments don't readily transfer to a single line item in net income, and companies may not have captured information in a way that lends itself to such presentation. FASB agreed to defer only a narrow portion of ASU No. 2011-05 as it applied to the presentation of reclassifications while it worked out a solution.

FASB's proposed solution is to require a tabular disclosure about reclassifications out of accumulated other comprehensive income, gathering in one location information about the amounts reclassified and creating a road map to related financial disclosures. FASB says that companies currently present the information throughout the financial statements, so preparers shouldn't expect to incur significant additional costs simply to reposition it.

In a statement, FASB Chairman Leslie Seidman said the proposed solution addresses the concerns about complexity in a way that should be useful to users of financial statements while also cost-effective for preparers. The board is accepting comments on the proposal through Oct. 15.