A new requirement for local governments to disclose tax abatements a step forward, but weak and minimal

In the middle of August, the Government Accounting Standards Board released a new accounting requirement for local governments that effective in 2017, requires local governments to disclose tax abatements as part of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report that local governments are required to produce and file each year. See "GASB Requires Disclosure of Tax Abatements" from Accounting Today:

The new disclosures about tax abatements that are entered into by other governments and reduce the reporting government’s tax revenues include the name of the government entering into the abatement agreement, the tax being abated and the dollar amount of the reporting government’s taxes abated.

According to Good Jobs First, the requirements are very general, do not include all such examples of subsidy, don't require disclosure by action and party, so there is no "naming of names," and fail to require reporting of the abatements and their impact on an ongoing basis, only a summary statement each year of that year's abatement awards.