The IASB met on November 15, 2023, to discuss sweep issues identified in drafting IFRS 18 Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements (draft Standard). The issues relate to subtotals and categories, aggregation and disaggregation, and other topics.

The IASB tentatively decided to clarify that the income and expenses from the specified assets comprise the income generated by the specified assets; the income and expenses arising from the initial and subsequent measurement of those assets; and the incremental expenses directly attributable to acquiring and disposing of those assets (for example, transaction costs and costs to sell).

Consequently, to maintain consistency between the investing and financing categories, the IASB tentatively decided to clarify that the income and expenses from liabilities arising from transactions involving only the raising of finance comprise the income and expenses arising from the initial and subsequent measurement of those liabilities; and the incremental expenses directly attributable to issuing and disposing of those liabilities (for example, transaction costs).

The IASB also tentatively decided to add application guidance with examples of assets that generate returns individually and largely independently of an entity’s other resources, and those that do not. This application guidance replaces the application guidance the IASB, at its July 2022 meeting, tentatively decided to add on income and expenses from financial assets arising from providing financing to customers.

The IASB tentatively decided to clarify that an entity need not assess whether the classification requirements determining a primary financial statement’s structure will result in a useful structured summary (because applying those requirements will always result in a useful structured summary); to clarify that an entity need not present separately a specific line item in a primary financial statement if doing so is unnecessary for the statement to provide a useful structured summary—even if other IFRS Accounting Standards contain a list of specific required line items or describe the line items as minimum requirements; to remove the proposed application guidance stating that, in general, presenting the list of items set out in the draft Standard in the operating category of the statement of profit or loss would be unlikely to reduce how effective the statement is in providing a useful structured summary; and to make consequential revisions to the example in the application guidance in the draft Standard on how to aggregate and disaggregate operating expenses.

The IASB also discussed and confirmed the drafting approaches for minor sweep issues including management-defined performance measures, aggregation and disaggregation.

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