Discussion Paper on financial statement presentation
16 Oct 2008
The IASB and the US FASB have jointly published for comment a Discussion Paper (DP) 'Preliminary Views on Financial Statement Presentation'.
The goal of the project is to create a standard that requires entities to organise financial statements in a manner that clearly communicates an integrated financial picture of the entity. The project is about how best to portray assets, liabilities, income, expense, cash flows and related information in financial statements. It is not about how those items are recognised or measured. The boards propose the following two objectives for financial statement presentation:
- Cohesiveness. Formatting the information in financial statements so that a reader can follow the flow of information through the various statements
- Disaggregation. Separating information that responds differently to economic events
To achieve these main objectives the boards have developed a principle-based format that is presented in the discussion paper and is visualised below:
Statement of Financial Position | Statement of Comprehensive Income | Statement of Cash Flows |
---|---|---|
Business
|
Business
|
Business
|
Financing
|
Financing
|
Financing
|
Income taxes | Income taxes on continuing operations (business and financing) | Income taxes |
Discontinued operations | Discontinued operations net of tax | Discontinued operations |
Other comprehensive income, net of tax | ||
Equity | Equity |
The Comment Deadline is 14 April 2009. Click for Press Release (PDF 43k). The IASB's goal is to issue an exposure draft of proposed revisions to IAS 1 by 2010.