At its meeting on October 24, 2018, the International Accounting Standards Board (the Board) met to consider criteria for evaluating possible amendments to IFRS 17.

The Board noted that at a future meeting it would consider whether any of the concerns and implementation challenges discussed by the Transition Resource Group and other stakeholders, including those relating to the costs and benefits of IFRS 17, indicate a need to amend the requirements of IFRS 17.

The Board tentatively decided, that when proposing any amendment to IFRS 17, in addition to demonstrating a need for the amendment, the staff must show that any proposal meets the following criteria:

1. the amendments would not result in significant loss of useful information relative to that which would otherwise be provided by IFRS 17 for users of financial statements—any amendments would avoid: (a) reducing the relevance and faithful representation of information in the financial statements of entities applying IFRS 17; (b) causing reduced comparability or introducing internal inconsistency in IFRS Standards, including within IFRS 17; or (c) increasing complexity for users of financial statements, thus reducing understandability.
2. the amendments would not unduly disrupt implementation already under way or risk undue delays in the effective date of this Standard, which is needed to address many inadequacies in the existing wide range of insurance accounting practices.

The Board discussed an overview of the main concerns and implementation challenges raised by stakeholders about requirements in IFRS 17.

At a future meeting, the Board will consider whether any concerns and implementation challenges indicate a need for standard-setting to amend the requirements of IFRS 17 beyond the annual improvements the Board has already tentatively decided to propose. The Board will also consider implications for the effective date of IFRS 17.

Review the IASB Update and podcast on the Board's Web site.

At its meeting on October 24, 2018, the International Accounting Standards Board (the Board) discussed the IFRIC’s recommendation to propose a narrow-scope amendment to IAS 12, Income Taxes. The proposed amendment relates to the recognition of deferred tax when an entity accounts for transactions, such as leases or decommissioning obligations, by recognizing both an asset and a liability. Following a discussion, the Board tentatively decided to propose a narrow-scope amendment that would narrow the initial recognition exemption in paragraphs 15 and 24 of IAS 12 so that it would not apply to transactions that give rise to both taxable and deductible temporary differences, to the extent the amounts recognized for the temporary differences are the same.

Review the IASB Update and podcast on the Board's Web site.

At its meeting on October 24, 2018, the International Accounting Standards Board (the Board) met to discuss the descriptions of three subtotals that the Board is proposing for the statement(s) of financial performance.

The Board tentatively decided that:

1. one of the three proposed subtotals should be described as "operating profit or loss";
2. the subtotal previously described as "business profit from consolidated entities" should be described as "operating profit or loss";
3. the subtotal previously described as ‘profit before income/expenses from investments, finance income/expenses and income tax’ should be described as "operating profit or loss and share of profit or loss of integral associates and joint ventures";
4. the subtotal previously described as "profit before finance income/expenses and income tax" should be described as "profit or loss before financing and income tax".

The Board noted that the description of any subtotals in the statement(s) of financial performance should faithfully represent what that subtotal represents. Consequently, the Board tentatively decided to clarify, possibly through the use of an example in a revised Standard, that:

1. the label "earnings before interest and taxes" (EBIT) would not be a faithful representation of the subtotal referred to in 4; and
2. any management performance measure labelled as "earnings before interest and taxes" should faithfully represent what is included in that management performance measure.

The Board will continue discussing topics within the scope of the project at future Board meetings.

Review the IASB Update and podcast on the Board's Web site.

At its meeting on October 24, 2018, the International Accounting Standards Board (the Board) discussed: (i) progress on the Targeted Standards-level Review of Disclosures; and (ii) guidance and examples intended to help entities apply the four-step materiality process in IFRS Practice Statement 2—Making Materiality Judgements (Materiality Practice Statement) when determining which accounting policies to disclose.

The Board received an oral update from the staff about progress on the Targeted Standards-level Review of Disclosures. The Board was not asked to make any decisions.

The Board tentatively decided to clarify that not all accounting policies relating to material transactions, other events or conditions are themselves material. And they tentatively decided to continue developing guidance and examples to help entities decide whether the accounting policies they apply to material transactions, other events or conditions are themselves material.

The Board asked the staff to perform some further analysis and expects to continue its discussion about accounting policy disclosures at a future meeting.

Review the IASB Update and podcast on the Board's Web site.

At its meeting on October 25, 2018, the International Accounting Standards Board (the Board) discussed the additional work to be performed on the research project before drafting a discussion paper and the timing of that work. The Board did not make any decisions.

In its July 2018 meeting, the Board set three research objectives for the research project. One objective is to explore ways to improve disclosure requirements to enable investors to assess whether a business combination was a good investment decision and whether, after the acquisition, the acquired business is performing as was expected at the time of the acquisition.

The Board tentatively decided that the staff should not perform a complete review of all the disclosure requirements in IFRS 3, Business Combinations and IAS 36, Impairment of Assets.

Feedback will be obtained from the Board’s consultative groups in November and December and the staff will report back to the Board at a future meeting.

Review the IASB Update and podcast on the Board's Web site.