Disclosure initiative

Date recorded:

Proposed amendments to IAS 1 and IFRS Practice Statement 2: due process steps and permission to begin the balloting process (Agenda Paper 11A)

Background

In response to the 2017 Disclosure Initiative—Principles of Disclosure Discussion Paper (DP), respondents supported the Board in developing guidance about which accounting policies to disclose. Most respondents thought that any guidance developed by the Board should be based on the relevance, usefulness and/or materiality of accounting policies.

Consequently, in its July 2018 meeting, the Board tentatively decided to develop additional guidance and examples for the IFRS Practice Statement 2 Making Materiality Judgements. These would explain and demonstrate the application of the four-step materiality process to accounting policy disclosure.

In its December 2018 meeting, the Board tentatively decided to amend IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements to require entities to disclose their material accounting policies rather than their significant accounting policies.

The purpose of this meeting was for the Board to decide whether the staff can begin the balloting process on the proposed amendments to IAS 1 and IFRS Practice Statement 2.

The Board was asked whether they agree:

  • a) to permit early application of the proposed amendments
  • b) that the proposed amendments should be applied prospectively
  • c) to allow 120 days for comment on the Exposure Draft
  • d) to begin the balloting process

They were also asked whether any members of the Board plan to dissent from issuing the Exposure Draft.

Discussion

There was not much discussion on this paper. One Board member suggested not to require an entity to make a disclosure if they early apply the amendment.

Decision

All Board members agreed unanimously with points (a) to (d) above.

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