Other comprehensive income — Comment letter analysis

Date recorded:

The Boards considered the summary of comment letters from the ED Presentation of Items of Other Comprehensive Income. The Boards noted that constituents supported all aspects of the proposal apart from the most significant one — presentation of one continuous statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income with two sections (i.e. support was limited to change of name, separate presentation of recycled and non-recycled items as well as presentation of income taxes). Nonetheless, constituents in general questioned the merits of the proposals before the Boards first addressed conceptual issue what is performance or the principle when items of OCI should be recycled and when not.

Almost all the discussion focussed on the requirement to present a single performance statement with two sections. The Boards remained split on whether to mandate single performance statement (supported by a slight majority of the IASB members), to mandate two separate performance statements (idea suggested by some FASB members) or to maintain status quo for the IASB. The FASB seem to see some attraction in the current IASB guidance on an option between a single statement or two statements that follow each other (what would be a change from current requirements in US GAAP that allows presenting items of OCI within the Statement of changes in equity). Given these diverse opinions the Boards asked the staff to provide an additional analysis of this issue (as other issues were relatively uncontroversial) and suggest some middle ground that would emphasise the importance of information in other comprehensive income but without de-emphasising the importance of net income. The Boards will continue discussion about this issue at the December joint meeting.

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