Discussion Paper on financial statement presentation

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16 Oct 2008

The IASB and the US FASB have jointly published for comment a Discussion Paper (DP) 'Preliminary Views on Financial Statement Presentation'.

The goal of the project is to create a standard that requires entities to organise financial statements in a manner that clearly communicates an integrated financial picture of the entity. The project is about how best to portray assets, liabilities, income, expense, cash flows and related information in financial statements. It is not about how those items are recognised or measured. The boards propose the following two objectives for financial statement presentation:

  • Cohesiveness. Formatting the information in financial statements so that a reader can follow the flow of information through the various statements
  • Disaggregation. Separating information that responds differently to economic events

To achieve these main objectives the boards have developed a principle-based format that is presented in the discussion paper and is visualised below:

 

Statement of Financial PositionStatement of Comprehensive IncomeStatement of Cash Flows
Business
  • Operating assets and liabilities
  • Investing assets and liabilities
Business
  • Operating income and expenses
  • Investing income and expenses
Business
  • Operating cash flows
  • Investing cash flows
Financing
  • Financing assets
  • Financing liabilities
Financing
  • Financing asset income
  • Financing liability expenses
Financing
  • Financing asset cash flows
  • Financing liability cash flows
Income taxes Income taxes on continuing operations (business and financing) Income taxes
Discontinued operations Discontinued operations net of tax Discontinued operations
Other comprehensive income, net of tax
Equity Equity

The Comment Deadline is 14 April 2009. Click for Press Release (PDF 43k). The IASB's goal is to issue an exposure draft of proposed revisions to IAS 1 by 2010.

 

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