Summary of Significant Accounting Policies

9 Months Ended

Sep. 29, 2019

Accounting Policies [Abstract]

Summary of Significant Accounting Policies

SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Organization. General Dynamics is a global aerospace and defense company that offers a broad portfolio of products and services in business aviation; combat vehicles, weapons systems and munitions; information technology (IT) services; command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) solutions; and shipbuilding and ship repair.

Basis of Consolidation and Classification. The unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements include the accounts of General Dynamics Corporation and our wholly owned and majority-owned subsidiaries. We eliminate all inter-company balances and transactions in the unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements. Some prior-year amounts have been reclassified among financial statement accounts or disclosures to conform to the current-year presentation.

Consistent with industry practice, we classify assets and liabilities related to long-term contracts as current, even though some of these amounts may not be realized within one year.

Further discussion of our significant accounting policies is contained in the other notes to these financial statements.

Interim Financial Statements. The unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements have been prepared pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission. These rules and regulations permit some of the information and footnote disclosures included in financial statements prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to be condensed or omitted.

Our fiscal quarters are typically 13 weeks in length. Because our fiscal year ends on December 31, the number of days in our first and fourth quarters varies slightly from year to year. Operating results for the three- and nine-month periods ended September 29, 2019, are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the year ending December 31, 2019.

The unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements contain all adjustments that are of a normal recurring nature necessary for a fair presentation of our results of operations and financial condition for the three- and nine-month periods ended September 29, 2019, and September 30, 2018.

These unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements should be read in conjunction with the Consolidated Financial Statements and notes thereto included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018.

Discontinued Operations, Net of Tax. In the third quarter of 2018, we disposed of certain CSRA operations to address an organizational conflict of interest with respect to services provided to a government customer. In accordance with GAAP, the sale did not result in a gain for financial reporting purposes. However, the sale generated a taxable gain, resulting in tax expense of $13.

Accounting Standards Updates. Effective January 1, 2019, we adopted Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Topic 842, Leases. ASC Topic 842 requires the recognition of lease rights and obligations as assets and liabilities on the balance sheet. Previously, lessees were not required to recognize on the balance sheet assets and liabilities arising from operating leases. As we elected the cumulative-effect adoption method, prior-period information has not been restated.

The standard provided several optional practical expedients for use in transition. We elected to use what the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has deemed the “package of practical expedients,” which allowed us not to reassess our previous conclusions about lease identification, lease classification and the accounting treatment for initial direct costs. We did not elect the practical expedient pertaining to the use of hindsight.

The most significant effects of the standard on our Consolidated Financial Statements are (1) the recognition of new right-of-use assets and lease liabilities on our Consolidated Balance Sheet for our operating leases, and (2) significant new disclosures about our leasing activities (see Note N). On January 1, 2019, we recognized operating lease liabilities and right-of-use assets of $1.4 billion based on the present value of the remaining lease payments over the lease term. The adoption did not result in a cumulative-effect adjustment to retained earnings. The new standard did not have a material impact on our results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.

There are several other accounting standards that have been issued by the FASB but are not yet effective, including Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-13, Financial Instruments - Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments. ASU 2016-13 significantly changes how entities account for credit losses for financial assets and certain other instruments, including trade receivables and contract assets, that are not measured at fair value through net income. The ASU requires a number of changes to the assessment of credit losses, including the utilization of an expected credit loss model, which requires consideration of a broader range of information to estimate expected credit losses over the entire lifetime of the asset, including losses where probability is considered remote. Additionally, the standard requires the estimation of lifetime expected losses for trade receivables and contract assets that are classified as current. We intend to adopt the standard on the effective date of January 1, 2020. We have not yet determined the effect of the ASU on our results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.