Conceptual framework — Discussion paper

Date recorded:

During the April meeting, the IASB discussed the [staff] papers that together comprise the initial draft of the DP. There is no plan to bring a DP to the May meeting. At the May meeting, the Staff will present a paper reviewing the due process steps with the intention to circulate the pre-ballot draft of the DP to the Board shortly after the May meeting.

The sections of the DP are likely to include:

  • Introduction and invitation to comment (no paper)
  • Purpose and status of the Conceptual Framework
  • Elements of the financial statements, including additional guidance to support the asset and liability definition
  • Recognition and derecognition
  • Definition of equity and distinction between liabilities and equity instruments
  • Measurement
  • Presentation and disclosure (general)
  • Presentation in the statement of comprehensive income

There were two other papers which will be incorporated in the above sections of the DP after the meeting:

  • Capital maintenance
  • Business model

The Staff provided feedback from the meeting with Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF) held on 8-9 April. The three topics discussed at the meeting were: Measurement; Presentation in the statement of comprehensive income and uncertainty in recognition of assets and liabilities. It was reported that there were a number of comments from ASAF members expressing a diversity of views; a Board member said it had been an informative discussion. The main conclusion from the discussion was that in its future request for responses the Board should also ask the respondents to provide alternatives in case they did not like what the Board was proposing.

One Board member raised a question about the going concern notion.  The Staff responded that going concern would be brought forward unchanged from the existing framework.

Another Board member questioned whether the Board should ‘take an inventory’ of the existing standards on the basis of the new Conceptual Framework (i.e. IFRSs would need to be changed). The general response was that this would take time as the standards get developed in the future.

No decisions were made by the Board.

Correction list for hyphenation

These words serve as exceptions. Once entered, they are only hyphenated at the specified hyphenation points. Each word should be on a separate line.