My questions (at the bottom of the post) relate to end-of-chapter question #33 from Reading 15 (Employee Compensation: Post Employment and Share Based), which is as follows:
In the solution (below), we adjust liabilities upward by $93m and equity downward by $93m.
[question removed by moderator]
My questions:
(1) Why do we adjust equity downward when making this adjustment? Why is it incorrect to simply assume higher liability and unchanged equity?
(2) Shouldn’t we take into account the impact on benefit expense (i.e., +$12m as per Exhibit 3), as it would hit retained earnings, which is a component of equity? Why is it okay to ignore this figure when making the analytical adjustments?