And goodwill accounting was the same. Historically, the FASB has issued several guidelines on how to account for and record goodwill on the balance sheet, as well as several methods for improving financial reporting over time. The guidance has been revised to aid better practice. In 1970, the APB issued Opinion No. 17, which required all entities to amortize their goodwill over a period of 40 years or less. In June 2001, the FASB issued SFAS 141/142 which prohibits the amortization of goodwill and requires an impairment test at least annually. In other words, the impairment charge is a terminology for writing down worthless goodwill to the amount recoverable through the income statement. The useful life of goodwill is now considered indefinite. Al-Khadash and Y.Salah (2009) defined that an impairment loss exists when the book value of goodwill exceeds its fair value and is not recoverable, i.e. the book value is greater than the undiscounted cash flows expected from the use of goodwill and any