June

IFRS Foundation Trustees seek to fill Advisory Council vacancies

23 Jun 2017

The Trustees of the IFRS Foundation are calling for candidates to fill vacancies occurring at the end of 2017 for membership to the IFRS Advisory Council.

The terms of 16 current members are completed on 31 December 2017. Of those 16 current members, 12 are eligible for reappointment. New members would serve two or three-year terms, starting on 1 January 2018, renewable once.

Please click for the full advert on the IASB website.

IASB posts webinar on IFRS 17

21 Jun 2017

The IASB has posted to its website a webinar on the recently issued standard IFRS 17 'Insurance Contracts'.

The webinar — hosted by insurance contracts team members Joanna Yeoh and Andrea Pryde — discusses the scope of IFRS 17.

The webinar and slides are available on the IASB's website.

IASB updates agenda for June 2017 meeting

20 Jun 2017

The IASB has updated the agenda for its 21–22 June 2017 meeting. Wednesday's meeting time was shortened, the order of topics changed, and — most notably — the discussion on materiality was moved to the Board's July meeting.

The IASB has also changed its work plan to indicate Q3 2017 for (1) the ED on the definition of materiality (formerly September 2017) and (2) the practice statement on materiality (formerly H1 2016).

The full agenda for the June meeting can be found here. We will post any updates to the agenda, our comprehensive pre-meeting summaries as well as observer notes from the meeting on this page as they become available.

IASB publishes proposed amendments to IAS 16 regarding proceeds before intended use

20 Jun 2017

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has published an exposure draft 'Property, Plant and Equipment — Proceeds before Intended Use (Proposed amendments to IAS 16)' on proceeds from selling items produced while bringing an asset into the location and condition necessary for it to be capable of operating in the manner intended by management. Comments are requested by 19 October 2017.

 

Background

The issue was initially raised with the IFRS Interpretations Committee that had origianally intended to develop an interpretation of IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment to deal with it. However, during the course of discussions the Committee concluded that a narrow-scope amendment to IAS 16 would be a better solution.

 

Suggested changes

ED/2017/4 Property, Plant and Equipment — Proceeds before Intended Use (Proposed amendments to IAS 16) proposes to amend IAS 16 to prohibit deducting from the cost of an item of property, plant and equipment any proceeds from selling items produced while bringing that asset to the location and condition necessary for it to be capable of operating in the manner intended by management. Instead, an entity would recognise the proceeds from selling such items, and the cost of producing those items, in profit or loss.

 

Effective date

The exposure draft does not contain a proposed effective date which the IASB intends to decide on after the exposure. Nevertheless, the IASB has already concluded that earlier application would be permitted.

 

Additional information

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ICAEW report on corporate reporting and new technologies

14 Jun 2017

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has released a report 'What next for corporate reporting: time to decide?' that argues that it is time for policy makers to take a decision on how best to use IT to satisfy increasing demands for information.

The report makes the following points:

  • Traditional paper-based reporting is still perceived by many as the principal form of communication.
  • There are increasing demands for a range of information to be provided in corporate reports and companies seem willing to provide it.
  • This leads to fears that the traditional reports are becoming too long (information overload) and therefore less useful.

ICAEW suggests that inclusion of digital and technology specialists in reporting discussions could highlight opportunities for companies to use technology in reporting as part of the solution to this problem, which might consist of presenting additional information outside of the annual report, in a digital format that is user-friendly and easy to access.

ICAEW believes that it would important to address these problems as soon as possible as the demand for more access to information is likely to continue to grow. However, ICAEW also notes that there needs to be further research into the implications of digitalisation and that key policy decisions on the issues would need to be taken if real progress is to be made in advancing the quality of corporate reporting.

The full report can be found on the ICAEW website.

Report on the April 2017 IFRS Advisory Council meeting

14 Jun 2017

The IFRS Advisory Council met in London on 4–5 April 2017. Significant topics on the agenda included (1) financial stability and the IFRS Foundation, (2) wider corporate reporting, and (3) materiality.

The report — prepared by the Chair of the IFRS Advisory Council, Joanna Perry — notes the following discussions:

  • Financial stability and the IFRS Foundation — Members of the Council received a presentation from the Secretary General of the Financial Stability Board. The presentation and ensuing discussion related both to a macroeconomic perspective of financial stability and to the key role of financial reporting standards as a foundation of financial stability. Members of Council then considered in breakout groups some key questions around the role of the IFRS Foundation in financial stability. One of the key messages to emerge was that financial stability is a byproduct of financial reporting and not the main objective.
  • Wider corporate reporting — The Council advised that it should be acknowledged that wider corporate reporting is becoming more important and that there is a role for the Board in this area although that role is not yet clear. There was broad support and encouragement for the Board to both undertake further research to obtain more information and to work with another body to consider further the role that the Board can play.
  • Materiality — Advice on the communications strategy for the Materiality Practice Statement included that the Board should be cognisant of the significant extent to which financial statements are likely to require revision as a result of the practice statement and should consider the communications strategy as a promotion and marketing exercise.

The next meeting of the IFRS Advisory Council is scheduled for 17–18 October 2017, in London. The full report on the council’s April meeting is available on the IASB's website.

Pre-meeting summaries for the June IASB meeting

13 Jun 2017

The IASB will meet at its offices in London on 21–22 June 2017. We have posted our pre-meeting summaries for the meeting that allow you to follow the IASB’s decision making more closely. For each topic to be discussed we summarise the agenda papers made available by the IASB staff and point out the main issues to be discussed by the IASB and the staff recommendations.

There are nine topics on the agenda.

Wednesday 21 June

The meeting begins with Disclosure Initiative: Materiality Practice Statement. The staff are responding to comments received as a result of an external review of the draft practice statement.

The next topic is Accounting Policies and Accounting Estimates, and a recommendation to remove one of the examples in IAS 8.

The Board will continue its discussion of Primary Financial Statements, focusing on approaches for describing capital structure, developing a principles-based approach for EBIT, management-defined performance measures, adjusted earnings per share and presenting the share of equity method profits or losses.

In the afternoon session the Board will look at rate-regulation examples and how the proposed model would apply to them.

The day concludes with Conceptual Framework discussion about limitations on what may constitute a reporting entity in situations when the reporting entity is not a legal entity.

Thursday 22 June

The meeting continues on Thursday morning with IFRS Implementation Issues, including a proposal to provide special transitional arrangements when an entity changes an accounting policy as a consequence of an IFRS Interpretations Committee agenda decision.

The Board will discuss the feedback from the comment letters on the proposed amendment to IFRS 9 on prepayment features with negative compensation, including the likely effective date.

The education sessions on dynamic risk management continue, focusing on a high-level illustration of the dynamic aspect of dynamic risk management.

The meeting concludes with a further discussion of the definition of a business.

More information

Our pre-meeting summaries are available on our June meeting note page and will be supplemented with our popular meeting notes after the meeting.

Ann Tarca and Nick Anderson appointed to the IASB

13 Jun 2017

The IFRS Foundation Trustees have announced the appointment of Professor Ann Tarca and Mr Nick Anderson to serve as members of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Professor Tarca will join the IASB in July 2017, Mr Anderson in September 2017, both for an initial term 5-year term.

Professor Tarca joins the IASB from the University of Western Australia. She served as a member of the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) from 2014 to 2017 and was Research Director for the AASB from February 2017. She was an academic fellow of the IFRS Foundation from 2011 to 2012.

Mr Anderson joins from Janus Henderson Investors in the UK. He was a member of the UK Accounting Standards Board from 2007 to 2013 and a founding member of the Corporate Reporting Users’ Forum (CRUF).

Please click for the announcement on the IASB's website. The Australian standard-setter AASB has also released a statement.

Decisions reached during the redeliberations on the Conceptual Framework

13 Jun 2017

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has made available a summary of tentative decisions in the Conceptual Framework project to date.

The IASB completed redeliberations of the May 2015 Exposure Drafts in March 2017 and expects to publish the revised Conceptual Framework in the second half of 2017.

Please click to access the decision summary on the IASB website.

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.