Significant Accounting Policies and Responsibility for Financial Statements (Policies)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Accounting Policies [Abstract]

Principles of Consolidation

The Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of each of PNMR, PNM, and TNMP include their accounts and those of subsidiaries in which that entity owns a majority voting interest. PNM also consolidates Valencia. See Note 6. PNM owns undivided interests in several jointly-owned power plants and records its pro-rata share of the assets, liabilities, and expenses for those plants. The agreements for the jointly-owned plants provide that if an owner were to default on its payment obligations, the non-defaulting owners would be responsible for their proportionate share of the obligations of the defaulting owner. In exchange, the non-defaulting owners would be entitled to their proportionate share of the generating capacity of the defaulting owner. There have been no such payment defaults under any of the agreements for the jointly-owned plants.PNMR shared services’ expenses, which represent costs that are primarily driven by corporate level activities, are charged to the business segments. These services are billed at cost and are reflected as general and administrative expenses in the business segments. Other significant intercompany transactions between PNMR, PNM, and TNMP include interest and income tax sharing payments, as well as equity transactions, and interconnection billings. See Note 15. All intercompany transactions and balances have been eliminated.

New Accounting Pronouncements

Information concerning recently issued accounting pronouncements that have not been adopted by the Company is presented below. The Company does not expect difficulty in adopting these standards by their required effective dates.

Accounting Standards Update 2018-14 – Compensation – Retirement Benefits – Defined Benefit Plans (Topic 715) Disclosure Framework: Changes to the Disclosure Requirements for Defined Benefit Plans

In August 2018, the FASB issued ASU 2018-14 to improve benefit plan sponsors’ disclosures for defined benefit pension and other post-employment benefit plans. ASU 2018-14 removes the requirement to disclose the amounts in other comprehensive income expected to be recognized as benefit cost over the next fiscal year and the requirement to disclose the impact of a one-percentage-point change in the assumed health care cost trend rate; clarifies the disclosure requirements for plans with assets that are less than their projected benefit, or accumulated benefit obligation; and requires significant gains and losses affecting benefit obligations during the period be disclosed. ASU 2018-14 is effective for the Company on December 31, 2020, although early adoption is permitted, and requires retrospective application. As discussed in Note 11 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements in the 2019 Annual Reports on Form 10-K and in Note 10, PNM and TNMP maintain qualified defined benefit, other postretirement benefit plans providing medical and dental benefits, and executive retirement programs. The Company is in the process of evaluating the requirements of ASU 2018-14 but does not anticipate these changes will have a significant impact on the Company’s defined benefit and other postretirement benefit plan disclosures.

Accounting Standards Update 2019-12 – Income Taxes (Topic 740): Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes

In December 2019, the FASB issued ASU 2019-12 as part of its initiative to reduce complexity in accounting standards. The amendments in ASU 2019-12 simplify accounting for income taxes by removing several accounting exceptions to accounting for income taxes. ASU 2019-12 also eliminates or simplifies other income tax accounting requirements, including a requirement that entities recognize franchise tax (or similar tax) that is partially based on income as an income-based tax. ASU 2019-12 is effective for the Company beginning on January 1, 2021 and allows for early adoption. ASU 2019-12 is to be applied prospectively or retrospectively in the period of adoption depending on the type of amendment. The Company is in the process of analyzing the impacts of this new standard.

GAAP requires that all excess tax benefits and deficiencies be recorded to tax expense and classified as operating cash flows when used to reduce income taxes payable. See Note 14.