If the TARP Inspector General would prepare my employers financial statements...

[Beavker]

The company I work for recently released the 401K Summary Annual report, and this line caught my eye:

"The value of the plan assets, after subtracting liabilities of the plan, was $..."

So, if we use the TARP Inspector General's accounting guidelines in reverse:

My company should just account for the assets, to hell with the liabilities that show the true value. Actually, they should account for the total assets throughout the year, also including those that have since been withdrawn, accounting for every single asset and no liabilities. Then, they should assume that the value of those assets would reach the amount that it would be given the market conditions return to their highest values per the lifetime of the values of the respective assets depicting the value of our 401K plan for plan year of 2008 being many times larger than it really is. Or to make it easier on us, use the TARP IG's assumption that the market would go to absolute zero, which would mean that the plan is in a deficit ($0 minus the liabilities) and is completely worthless.

Why not just report it that way? Oh, my company has to use REAL accounting figures and report on those numbers, not numbers that are fabricated and speculative?

I'm not accountant obviously, and I realize his goal was different, but what if?