Cost Accounting Standards - Revision to Existing Exemption

There are ten categories of contracts and subcontracts that are exempt from all CAS (Cost Accounting Standards) requirements. Some of the more common ones include sealed bids, contracts under $700 thousand, and contracts to small businesses. One category, often referred to as the "b15 exemption", exempts Firm fixed price contracts or subcontracts awarded on the basis of adequate price competition without submission of cost or pricing data.

The CAS Board is now proposing to amend the wording of this exemption to include the term "certified" before the phrase "cost or pricing data". The Board believes that a clarification is required because of the Government's emerging use of "data other than certified cost or pricing data" to negotiate contracts is causing some confusion. "Data other than certified costs or pricing data could still be construed as cost or pricing data, just not certified. Thus, some contractors and contracting officers have inappropriately excluded such contracts from CAS requirements.

When the exemption was first drafted in 2000, there was no category called "data other than cost or pricing data" so that the CAS Board believed that "certified" was presumed in the definition.