Norway steps back from ambitious plan to introduce of IFRS for SMEs based accounting standards
27 Jun 2017
In 2015, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance circulated for comment an exposure draft of a new Accounting Act for Norway. Part of the proposed reform was to replace current Norwegian accounting standards by requirements based on the IASB’s IFRS for SMEs. In another exposure draft published now, the proposals get scaled back to minimum changes that would not even suffice to bring the Norwegian Accounting Act in line with the revised European Accounting Directive.
The fact that the changes to the existing accounting legislation in Norway proposed now will not even meet the minimum requirements of the new European Accounting Directive together with the fact that the new proposals only comprise some of the suggested simplifications of the original proposal and even come with stressing a calculated amount of several hundred million crowns the simplifications would save, seem to point at a conscious move ahead of the upcoming elections in Norway. Both, the Norwegian standard-setter (Norsk RegnskapsStiftelse) and the Norwegian national institute (Norsk Revisorforening), have reacted with disappointment.
The following additional information is available (available in Norwegian only):
- The new proposal on the government's website
- The comment by the standard-setter ("Lack of progress in the work around the new Accounting Act")
- The comment by the national institute ("Not impressive by the government!")
