SEC Draws Accounting Board Into Plan to End Quarterly Reports

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins called out the US accounting board in his latest move to streamline the rules governing how public companies report their earnings to investors.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission proposed Tuesday regulatory changes that would allow publicly traded companies to file semiannual financial reports instead of quarterly ones.

The proposal is part of the Wall Street regulator’s agenda in the current Trump administration to combat a decades-long slump in the number of listed businesses. As the SEC fields public input and explores potential changes to corporate disclosure rules, Atkins said the Financial Accounting Standards Board should examine its own rulebook.

The independent board should evaluate possible amendments to its accounting rules to “avoid compelling the disclosure of immaterial information” in interim reports’ financial statements, Atkins said Tuesday as the semiannual reporting proposal was unveiled.

Atkins has frequently said current practice strays from the regulator’s materiality standard, which requires companies to make disclosures that reasonable investors would deem important. He has pushed to curtail corporate disclosures, arguing “an avalanche” of insignificant information burdens companies without protecting investors.

The SEC, for example, has sent a proposal to the White House to formally end Biden-era climate disclosure rules for public companies, saying it’s focusing under Atkins on a materiality-focused approach to securities regulation.

Atkins’ Tuesday statement signals that, “in the effort to reduce reporting burdens for companies—whether that’s to reduce cost or timing or encourage more companies to go public—clearly he believes that FASB plays a key role in helping to clarify that,” said Steve Soter, vice president and industry principal at financial compliance platform Workiva.

FASB is recognized by the SEC as the designated accounting standard-setter for public companies.

The Norwalk, Conn.-based board works closely with the SEC and others “to continuously improve the financial information available for capital allocation decisions, to identify and focus on the most relevant, material information,” FASB spokesperson Christine Klimek said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to work with Chairman Atkins and his staff on these efforts.”

Interim Reports

The SEC’s latest proposal would drop the current requirement for public companies to file quarterly reports providing snapshots of their financial performance, known as 10-Qs.

Companies electing to file semiannual reports would file one such report in lieu of three quarterly reports. Companies would still need to file annual reports.

Proponents of the effort like the US Chamber of Commerce say the change would reduce unnecessary paperwork burdens and free up resources for company executives to engage in longer-term strategic thinking.

Meanwhile, critics argue less frequent reports could decrease transparency and hurt financial analysis. Analysts and investors “live for information,” accounting analyst Jack Ciesielski said.

Accounting rules detail which information companies need to include in their “interim” financial statements, which currently include the quarterly statements. FASB issued an update in December 2025 that creates a list of disclosures required on an interim basis to make the rules easier to navigate.

As a result of the SEC proposal, FASB may need to consider places in the rulebook that refer to quarterly filings and determine when they need to refer to a different cadence, an SEC official said on a Tuesday press call.

While interim reports provide investors with material information about how companies are doing financially, 10-Qs may not be the ideal reporting frequency for every business, the SEC proposal said. The change would maintain a system that elicits “material, timely, and regular disclosures.”

A section of the accounting rulebook spells out that guidance “need not be applied to immaterial items.” FASB also released a concepts statement in 2018 meant to better ensure the materiality concepts are consistent with the definition used by the SEC, among other groups.

There’s room for improvement for bodies including the SEC and FASB regarding how they discuss materiality, Metrix Advisory Founder and Executive Adviser Marc Siegel said. There should be a “systemwide understanding of what materiality means,” he said.

“That inconsistency creates real noise in the system,” Siegel, a former FASB board member, said. “What ends up happening is companies just decide to disclose—it’s easier to disclose than to worry about pulling something out and having to justify why it was okay to do that.”

Future Feedback

The SEC proposal asked the public to weigh in on whether moving to semiannual filings would lead to reduced material information for investors, or if other regulatory filings would elicit “sufficient information to offset the less-frequent interim reports.”

Companies are currently required to submit reports known as 8-Ks to the SEC to announced significant events or changes, such as executive officer appointments and bankruptcy filings.

“Are there other material events that could happen at a company that maybe wouldn’t require an 8-K? Perhaps,” said Keith Constance, managing director in FTI Consulting’s Risk & Investigations practice.

Companies could file 8-Ks under the “other” category. There may be more frequent use of these filings if semiannual reporting becomes an option because companies will still need to get information to investors, Workiva’s Soter said.

“The longer you sit on material non-public information, the greater the risk that that could make its way out into the ecosystem,” Soter said. “Companies will be looking at that very closely.”