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Summary of Significant Accounting Policies | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2019
Accounting Policies [Abstract] |
Summary of Significant Accounting Policies |
NOTE 1. | SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES
A. | Basis of Presentation Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. (the "Company”) is a non-asset based provider of global logistics services operating through a worldwide network of offices and exclusive or non-exclusive agents. The Company’s customers include retailing and wholesaling, electronics, high technology, industrial and manufacturing companies around the world. International trade is influenced by many factors, including economic and political conditions in the United States and abroad, currency exchange rates, laws and policies relating to tariffs, trade restrictions, foreign investments and taxation. Periodically, governments consider a variety of changes to tariffs and trade restrictions and accords. The Company cannot predict the outcome of ongoing proposals or negotiations, nor can the Company predict the effects adoption of any such proposal will have on the Company’s business. Doing business in foreign locations also subjects the Company to a variety of risks and considerations not normally encountered by domestic enterprises. In addition to being influenced by governmental policies and inter-governmental disputes concerning international trade, the Company’s business may also be affected by political developments and changes in government personnel or policies as well as economic turbulence, political unrest and security concerns in the nations and on the shipping lanes in which it does business and the future impact that these events may have on international trade, oil prices and security costs. The consolidated financial statements have been prepared pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (U.S. GAAP). The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of the Company and its subsidiaries stated in U.S. dollars, the Company’s reporting currency. In addition, the consolidated financial statements also include the accounts of operating entities where the Company maintains a parent-subsidiary relationship through unilateral control over assets and operations together with responsibility for payment of all liabilities, notwithstanding a lack of technical majority ownership of the subsidiary's common stock. All significant intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. All dollar amounts in the notes are presented in thousands except for per share data or unless otherwise specified. Certain prior year amounts in the notes to the consolidated financial statements have been revised to conform to the 2019 presentation. B. | Cash Equivalents All highly liquid investments with a maturity of three months or less at date of purchase are considered to be cash equivalents. C. | Accounts Receivable The Company maintains an allowance for doubtful accounts, which is reviewed at least monthly for estimated losses resulting from the inability of its customers to make required payments for services and advances. Additional allowances may be necessary in the future if the ability of its customers to pay deteriorates. The Company has recorded an allowance for doubtful accounts in the amounts of $11,143, $15,345 and $12,858 as of December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively. Additions and write-offs have not been significant in any of these years. D. | Long-Lived Assets, Depreciation and Amortization Property and equipment are recorded at cost and are depreciated or amortized on the straight-line method over the shorter of the assets’ estimated useful lives or lease terms. Useful lives for major categories of property and equipment are as follows:
| Buildings and land improvements |  | 30 to 40 years
| Building improvements |  | 3 to 10 years
| Furniture, fixtures, equipment and purchased software |  | 3 to 10 years
Expenditures for maintenance, repairs, and replacements of minor items are charged to earnings as incurred. Major upgrades and improvements that extend the life of the asset are capitalized. Upon disposition, the cost and related accumulated depreciation are removed from the accounts and the resulting gain or loss is included in income for the period. For the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, the Company performed the required goodwill annual impairment test during the fourth quarter and determined that no impairment had occurred. E. | Revenues and Revenue Recognition Effective January 1, 2018, the Company adopted Topic 606 Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606). The adoption of Topic 606 did not materially impact the Company's revenue recognition policy. The Company adopted the standard using the modified retrospective transition method applied to those contracts not completed as of January 1, 2018, resulting in a $22 million adjustment to the opening balance of retained earnings and the recording of deferred contract costs and contract liabilities of $135 million and $165 million, respectively. The Company satisfied nearly all performance obligations for the contract liabilities recorded upon adoption at January 1, 2018, and recognized the corresponding revenues and costs during the first quarter of 2018. In conjunction with the adoption of Topic 606, the Company also changed its presentation of certain warehouse and distribution revenues from a net to a gross basis, which increased customs brokerage and other services revenues and operating expenses by approximately $225 million in 2018 compared to 2017. Comparative prior year information has not been adjusted and continues to be reported under the Company's historical revenue recognition policies. The Company provides global logistics services, including air and ocean freight consolidation and forwarding, customs brokerage, warehousing and distribution, purchase order management, vendor consolidation, time-definite transportation services, temperature-controlled transit, cargo insurance, specialized cargo monitoring and tracking and other logistics solutions. As a non-asset based carrier, the Company does not own transportation assets. The Company derives its revenues by entering into agreements that are generally comprised of a single performance obligation, which is that freight is shipped for and received by the customer. The Company's three principal services are the revenue categories presented in the Consolidated Statements of Earnings: 1) airfreight services, 2) ocean freight and ocean services, and 3) customs brokerage and other services. The most significant drivers of changes in gross revenues and related transportation expenses are volume, sell rates and buy rates. Volume has a similar effect on the change in both gross revenues and related transportation expenses in each of the Company's three primary sources of revenue. The major portion of the Company's air and ocean freight revenues are generated by purchasing transportation services on a wholesale basis from direct (asset-based) carriers and then reselling those services to customers on a retail basis. The rate billed to our customers (the sell rate) is recognized as revenues and the rate we pay to the carrier (the buy rate) is recognized in operating expenses as the directly related cost of transportation and other expenses. Effective January 1, 2018, revenue is recognized upon transfer of control of promised services to customers, which occurs over time. The Company has determined that in general each shipment transaction or service order constitutes a separate contract with the customer. However, when the Company provides multiple services to a customer, different contracts may be present for different services. The Company combines the contracts, which form a single performance obligation, and accounts for the contracts as a single contract when certain criteria are met. The Company typically satisfies its performance obligations as services are rendered over time. A typical shipment would include services rendered at origin, such as pick-up and delivery to port, freight services from origin to destination port and destination services, such as customs clearance and final delivery. The Company measures the performance of its obligations as services are completed over the life of a shipment, including services at origin, freight and destination. This method of measurement of progress depicts the pattern of the Company's actual performance under the contracts with the customer. There are no significant judgments involved in measuring the progress of the performance obligations. Amounts allocated to the services for each performance obligation are typically based on standalone selling prices. The Company does not have significant variable consideration in its contracts. Taxes assessed concurrently with a specific revenue-producing transaction that are collected by the Company from a customer are excluded from revenue. Typically, the transaction price for each of the Company's services are quoted as separate components; however, customers on occasion will request an all-inclusive rate for a set of services known in the industry as “door-to-door service.” This means that the customer is billed a single rate for all services from pickup at origin to delivery at destination. In these instances, the transaction price is allocated to each service on a relative selling price basis. The Company fulfills nearly all of its performance obligations within a one to two month-period and contracts with customers have an original expected duration of less than one year. The Company generally has an unconditional right to consideration when the services are initiated or soon thereafter. The amount due from the customer is recorded as accounts receivable. The amounts related to services that are not yet completed at the reporting date are presented as contract liabilities, with corresponding direct costs to fulfill the performance obligation that will be satisfied in the future presented as deferred contract costs. The Company generally does not incur incremental costs to obtain the contract with the customer. The Company may incur costs to fulfill the contract with the customers, such as set-up costs. However, the amount incurred is insignificant to the Company’s consolidated financial statements. The Company evaluates whether amounts billed to customers should be reported as gross or net revenue. Generally, revenue is recorded on a gross basis when the Company is primarily responsible for fulfilling the promise to provide the services, when it assumes risk of loss, when it has discretion in setting the prices for the services to the customers, and when the Company has the ability to direct the use of the services provided by the third party. The Company disaggregates its revenues by its three primary service categories in the consolidated financial statements: airfreight, ocean freight and ocean services and customs brokerage and other. Revenues by geographic location are presented within business segment information in Note 10. In 2019, the Company revised its presentation for revenue transfers between its geographic operating segments and services rendered at the destination, which moved certain revenues and directly related operating expenses for air and ocean transactions to destination services within customs brokerage and other services. These changes better align revenue reporting with the location where the services are performed, as well as the transactional reporting being developed as part of the Company’s new accounting systems and processes. The change in presentation had no impact on consolidated or segment operating income. The 2019 results also include the effect of changing the presentation of certain import services from a net to a gross basis, which increased revenues and directly related operating expenses in customs brokerage and other services but did not change operating income. The impact on reported consolidated and segment total revenues and expenses for these changes was immaterial and the prior year presentation has not been revised. F. | Income Taxes Income taxes are accounted for under the asset and liability method of accounting. Under this method, deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the future tax consequences attributed to differences between the financial statement carrying amounts of existing assets and liabilities and their respective tax bases, the tax effect of loss carryforwards and tax credit carryforwards. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are measured using enacted tax rates expected to apply to taxable income in the years in which those temporary differences are expected to be recovered or settled. The effect on deferred tax assets and liabilities of a change in tax rates is recognized in income in the period that includes the enactment date. Earnings of the Company's foreign subsidiaries are not considered to be indefinitely reinvested outside of the United States. Accordingly, prior to the implementation of the requirements of U.S. tax reform under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (2017 Tax Act) in December of 2017, U.S. Federal and State income taxes were provided for all undistributed earnings net of related foreign tax credits. See Note 7 for impacts associated with U.S. tax reform under the 2017 Tax Act. A valuation allowance is established when necessary to reduce deferred tax assets to amounts expected to be realized. The Company recognizes interest expense related to unrecognized tax benefits or underpayment of income taxes in interest expense and recognizes penalties in operating expenses. The 2017 Tax Act included provisions for Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI) under which taxes on foreign income are imposed on the excess of a deemed return on tangible assets of certain foreign subsidiaries and for Base Erosion and Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT) under which taxes are imposed on certain base eroding payments to affiliated foreign companies. The Company treats BEAT and GILTI as discrete adjustments as components of current income tax expense. In February 2018, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued amended guidance for reporting comprehensive income to reflect changes resulting from the 2017 Tax Act. The amendment, which had an effective date of January 1, 2019, provided the option to reclassify stranded tax effects resulting from the 2017 Tax Act within accumulated other comprehensive income (AOCI) to retained earnings. The Company elected to not reclassify stranded income tax effects from AOCI to retained earnings, including those related to implementation of the 2017 Tax Act. Beginning on January 1, 2017, the Company adopted accounting guidance requiring that, prospectively, excess tax benefits and deficiencies be recorded in income tax expense for stock option exercises, cancellations and disqualifying dispositions of employee stock purchase plan shares. G | Net Earnings Attributable to Shareholders per Common Share Diluted earnings attributable to shareholders per share is computed using the weighted average number of common shares and dilutive potential common shares outstanding. Dilutive potential common shares represent outstanding stock options, stock purchase rights and unvested restricted stock units. Basic earnings attributable to shareholders per share is calculated using the weighted average number of common shares outstanding without taking into consideration dilutive potential common shares outstanding. H. | Stock Plans The Company maintains several equity incentive plans under which the Company has granted stock options, director restricted stock, restricted stock units (RSUs), performance stock units (PSUs) and employee stock purchase rights to employees or directors. The Company recognizes stock compensation expense based on the fair value of awards at the grant date. This expense, adjusted for expected forfeitures, is recognized in net earnings on a straight-line basis over the service periods as a component of salaries and related costs. Expense for PSU awards is recognized over the service period when it is probable the performance goal will be achieved. RSUs and PSUs awarded to certain employees meeting specific retirement eligibility criteria at the time of grant are expensed immediately, as there is no substantive service period associated with those awards. I. | Foreign Currency Foreign currency amounts attributable to foreign operations have been translated into U.S. dollars using year-end exchange rates for assets and liabilities, historical rates for equity, and weighted average rates for revenues and expenses. Translation adjustments resulting from this process are recorded as components of other comprehensive income until complete or substantially complete liquidation by the Company of its investment in a foreign entity. Currency fluctuations are a normal operating factor in the conduct of the Company’s business and foreign exchange transaction gains and losses are included in revenues and operating expenses. Also, the Company is exposed to foreign currency exchange fluctuations on monetary assets and liabilities denominated in currencies that are not the local functional currency. Foreign exchange gains and losses on such balances are recognized in net earnings within customs brokerage and other services costs. Net foreign currency losses in 2019, 2018 and 2017 were $9,251, $1,853 and $13,315, respectively. The Company follows a policy of accelerating international currency settlements to manage its foreign exchange exposure. Accordingly, the Company enters into foreign currency hedging transactions only in limited locations where there are regulatory or commercial limitations on the Company’s ability to move money freely. Such hedging activity during 2019, 2018 and 2017 was insignificant. The Company had no foreign currency derivatives outstanding at December 31, 2019 and 2018. J. | Comprehensive Income Comprehensive income consists of net earnings and other gains and losses affecting equity that, under U.S. GAAP, are excluded from net earnings. For the Company, these consist of foreign currency translation gains and losses, net of related income tax effects and comprehensive income or loss attributable to the noncontrolling interests. Upon the complete or substantially complete liquidation of the Company's investment in a foreign entity, cumulative translation adjustments are recorded as reclassification adjustments in other comprehensive income and recognized in net earnings. Accumulated other comprehensive loss consisted entirely of foreign currency translation adjustments, net of related income tax effects, as of December 31, 2019 and 2018. K. | Segment Reporting The Company is organized functionally in geographic operating segments. Accordingly, management focuses its attention on revenues, directly related cost of transportation and other expenses for each of the Company’s three primary sources of revenue, salaries and other operating expenses, operating income, identifiable assets, capital expenditures, depreciation and amortization and equity generated in each of these geographical areas when evaluating the effectiveness of geographic management. Transactions among the Company’s various offices are conducted using the same arms-length pricing methodologies the Company uses when its offices transact business with independent agents. Certain costs are allocated among the segments based on the relative value of the underlying services, which can include allocation based on actual costs incurred or estimated cost plus a profit margin. L. | Use of Estimates The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of the assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the period. The Company uses estimates primarily in the following areas: accounts receivable valuation, accrual of costs related to ancillary services the Company provides, accrual of liabilities for the portion of the related exposure that the Company has self-insured, accrual of various tax liabilities including estimates associated with the 2017 Tax Act, accrual of loss contingencies and calculation of share-based compensation expense. Actual results could be materially different from the estimated provisions and accruals recorded. M. | Recent Accounting Pronouncements Leases Effective January 1, 2019, the Company adopted new lease accounting guidance using a modified retrospective approach and recognizing a right-of-use (ROU) asset and lease liability on the balance sheet. On January 1, 2019, ROU assets and lease liabilities were recorded for all existing leases exceeding one-year terms and were measured at the present value of lease payments over the remaining lease term. The adoption of this accounting standard resulted in recording ROU assets and lease liabilities for operating leases of $343 million and $340 million, respectively, as of January 1, 2019. The adoption of this standard had no impact on retained earnings in the consolidated balance sheets. In recording the ROU asset and lease liability, the Company elected to apply the following practical expedients:
| • | Package of practical expedients not to reassess:
| ◦ | Whether a contract is or contains a lease,
| ◦ | Historical lease classification and
| ◦ | Initial direct costs.
| • | Use of hindsight when determining the lease term.
Additionally, the Company has elected to apply the short-term lease exemption for leases with a non-cancelable period of twelve months or less and has chosen not to separate nonlease components from lease components and instead to account for each as a single lease component. The Company determines if an arrangement is a lease at inception. ROU assets represent the Company's right to use an underlying asset for the lease term, and lease liabilities represent the Company's obligation to make lease payments arising from the lease. All ROU assets and lease liabilities are recognized at the commencement date at the present value of lease payments over the lease term. ROU assets are adjusted for lease incentives and initial direct costs. The lease term includes renewal options exercisable at the Company's sole discretion when the Company is reasonably certain to exercise that option. As the Company's leases generally do not have an implicit rate, the Company uses an estimated incremental borrowing rate based on market information available at the commencement date to determine the present value. Certain of the leases include variable payments, which may vary based upon changes in facts or circumstances after the start of the lease. The Company excludes variable payments from ROU assets and lease liabilities, to the extent not considered fixed, and instead expenses variable payments as incurred. Lease expense is recognized on a straight-line basis over the lease term and is included in rent and occupancy expenses in the consolidated statements of earnings. Credit Losses on Financial Instruments In June 2016, the FASB issued an Accounting Standards Update (ASU), which amends existing guidance for the accounting of credit losses on financial instruments. Under the ASU, the valuation allowance for credit losses are expected to be incurred over the financial asset’s contractual term. The Company reviewed the new credit loss standard and determined that it applied to Company's accounts receivable, which are of short duration and for which the Company has not historically experienced significant credit losses. The Company will adopt this standard effective January 1, 2020 with a cumulative effect of adoption recorded as an adjustment to retained earnings. The Company evaluated the impact of the new prescribed credit loss model and compared it to its current methodology, and determined that it does not have a material effect on the Company’s consolidated financial statements and related disclosures. Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes In December 2019, the FASB issued an ASU, which simplifies the accounting for income taxes by removing certain exceptions to the general principles in Topic 740. The ASU also clarifies and amends existing guidance to improve consistent application among reporting entities. This standard will become effective for the Company on January 1, 2021. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of this standard on its consolidated financial statements and disclosures.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for the business description and accounting policies concepts. Business description describes the nature and type of organization including but not limited to organizational structure as may be applicable to holding companies, parent and subsidiary relationships, business divisions, business units, business segments, affiliates and information about significant ownership of the reporting entity. Accounting policies describe all significant accounting policies of the reporting entity. + References Reference 1: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 275 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/topic&trid=2134479 Reference 2: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 235 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/topic&trid=2122369 + Details
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