Note 19: All Other Liabilities
This caption includes liabilities for various items including non-current compensation and benefits, deferred income, interest on tax liabilities, unrecognized tax benefits, accrued participation and residuals, environmental remediation, asset retirement obligations, derivative instruments, product warranties and a variety of sundry items.
Accruals for non-current compensation and benefits amounted to $21,509 million and $16,997 million for year-end 2007 and 2006, respectively. These amounts include postretirement benefits, international and supplemental pension benefits, and other compensation and benefit accruals such as deferred incentive compensation. The increase in 2007 was primarily the result of plan benefit changes resulting from new U.S. labor agreements and retiree health cost increases.
We are involved in numerous remediation actions to clean up hazardous wastes as required by federal and state laws. Liabilities for remediation costs, exclude possible insurance recoveries and, when dates and amounts of such costs are not known, are not discounted. When there appears to be a range of possible costs with equal likelihood, liabilities are based on the low end of such range. Uncertainties about the status of laws, regulations, technology and information related to individual sites make it difficult to develop a meaningful estimate of the reasonably possible aggregate environmental remediation exposure. However, even in the unlikely event that remediation costs amounted to the high end of the range of costs for each site, the resulting additional liability would not be material to our financial position, results of operations or liquidity.