Section PS 3410 - Government transfers

Effective date:

April 1, 2012

Published by the PSAB:

March 2011

Overview

This Section establishes standards on how to account for and report government transfers to individuals, organizations and other governments from both a transferring government and a recipient government perspective.

Government transfers are transfers of monetary assets or tangible capital assets from a government to an individual, an organization or another government for which the government making the transfer does not:

  1. receive any goods or services directly in return, as would occur in a purchase / sale or other exchange transaction;
  2. expect to be repaid in the future, as would be expected in a loan; or
  3. expect a direct financial return, as would be expected in an investment.

A government transfer should be recognized by a transferring government as an expense in the period the transfer is authorized and all eligibility criteria have been met by the recipient.  A transfer without eligibility criteria or stipulations should be recognized as revenue by a recipient government when the transfer is authorized.

Financial statements should disclose major kinds of transfers recognized in the accounting period and information about the nature and terms of liabilities, if any, arising from government transfers received.

History of Section PS 3410

Date

Development

Comments

November 1990

New Section

This Section establishes standards on how to account for and report government transfers in government financial statements.

March 2011

Revised Section

This Section revises and replaces previous Section PS 3410 Government transfers.

Effective for fiscal years beginning on or after April 1, 2012, Earlier adoption is encouraged.

April 2016

PSAB - Post-Implementation Review completed

PSAB issued its Feedback Statement

Note: The above summary does not include details of consequential amendments made as the result of other projects.

Public Sector Accounting Discussion Group meetings

  • May 7, 2015 - Section PS 3410:  Gas Tax Agreements
  • March 15, 2017 - Section PS 3410: Authority to Pay and Transfer Receivables

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.