The paper aims to facilitate discussion of possible solutions to a perceived financial statements information gap relating to intangible assets, focusing on disclosures about unrecognized internally generated intangible assets that could be made in financial statements, having regard to costs and benefits. It considers:

• a spectrum of possible disclosures, whether of a financial (cost or fair value) or non-financial (quantitative, non-quantitative or narrative) nature, or a combination of all or some thereof, that could be made in financial statements;
• the types of entities that should be subject to the disclosures;
• whether the disclosures should be mandated or encouraged; and
• how a standard-setting project could be structured and progressed to achieve timely improvements to disclosures.

As a first step, the paper concludes that consideration could be given to making improvements to the current approach to disclosures about unrecognized internally generated intangible assets by publicly-accountable for-profit private-sector entities.

Review the staff paper on the AASB's website.