2017

IFRS 2017 'Red Book' now available

14 Mar 2017

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has announced that the 2017 edition of the Bound Volume of International Financial Reporting Standards (the 'Red Book') is now available.

eIFRS Professional and Comprehensive subscribers can now access the electronic files of the 2017 IFRS 'Red Book' via eIFRS (you will be required to provide your login details).

The Red Book is also available through the IASB's Web Shop. Copies are priced at £75 each, plus shipping.

Pre-meeting summaries for the March IASB meeting

13 Mar 2017

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) will meet at its offices in London on 21–22 March 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 eight topics on the agenda.

Tuesday 21 March

The IASB will consider corporate reporting more broadly. Until now the IASB has been monitoring developments in corporate reporting, including integrated reporting, sustainability and the recent work on climate-related disclosures, and cooperating with other bodies. The staff recommendation is that the IASB take a more active role in thinking about broader corporate reporting issues. As a first step, the IASB should look to review and update its Practice Statement on Management Commentary.

The IASB has a brief session to review its work on goodwill and impairment, primarily for information and planning purposes.

The IASB will review its work on discount rates, one of its research projects. The staff are recommending that the project be closed, with no further work required other than to ensure that the analysis is properly documented and retained on the IASB’s website. This does not prevent the IASB discussing low and negative interest rates, which it plans to do later in 2017.

The IASB will continue its discussions on Primary Financial Statements. The staff are recommending that entities be required to have a subtotal in the income statement for EBIT. They know that this will require future discussion of what constitutes finance income and expense from ordinary activities and how earnings from associates fits in. The staff are also recommending that entities be permitted to present a measure of operating performance, using their own definition. The papers also discuss the general aggregation principles.

The IASB will conclude its public discussions on the Conceptual Framework. The staff are recommending that entities that have rely on the Framework to develop policies for regulatory account balances be required to continue to use the existing Framework until they apply the future Standard on rate-regulated activities.

There will be a brief oral update on the Insurance Contracts project.

Wednesday 22 March

The IASB will have an education session on Dynamic Risk Management. The staff plan is to have the IASB identify a preferred model by about October 2017, which would then be developed further.

The financial instruments with the characteristics of equity project will wrap up its current phase. The IASB will discuss how the proposed model would apply to derivatives in an entity’s own equity in a group scenario when the functional currency of the parent differs from that of the subsidiary. They will also assess the implications of the model for other Standards, particularly IFRS 2 Share-based Payments and IAS 33 Earnings per Share. The next step is the preparation of the Discussion Paper.

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

March 2017 IASB meeting agenda posted

10 Mar 2017

The IASB has posted the agenda for its next meeting, which will be held at its offices in London on 21–22 March 2017.

The Board will discuss the following:

  • Wider corporate reporting.
  • Goodwill and impairment.
  • Discount rates.
  • Primary financial statements.
  • Conceptual framework.
  • Insurance contracts.
  • Dynamic risk management.
  • Financial in­stru­ments with char­ac­ter­is­tics of equity.

The full agenda for the 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.

 

IFRS conference in Amsterdam

09 Mar 2017

The IFRS Foundation has announced that its next IFRS conference in Europe will be held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on 29–30 June 2017.

The con­fer­ence will include an IASB update and implementation and technical break-out sessions on IFRS 9, IFRS 15, IFRS 16, primary financial statements, conceptual framework, and post-implementation review of IFRS 13. In addition, the conference will contain sessions on insurance and materiality as well as the future of corporate reporting.

More details, including reg­is­tra­tion in­for­ma­tion, are available on the con­fer­ence website.

2017 IFRS XBRL taxonomy issued

09 Mar 2017

The IFRS Foundation has issued its 2017 IFRS Taxonomy. The IFRS Taxonomy is a translation of IFRSs (International Financial Reporting Standards) into XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language).

The IFRS Taxonomy 2017 is consistent with IFRSs as issued by the IASB at 1 January 2017 and incorporates the finalised taxonomy update 1 and the finalised taxonomy update 2, published by the IFRS Foundation in April and in December 2016 respectively. Final changes resulting from the proposed taxonomy update 3 published in December 2016 have been incorporated directly into the IFRS Taxonomy 2017.

On 28 March 2017, the IFRS Taxonomy team is holding two webinar sessions  (one in the morning, one in the afternoon) to answer questions about the IFRS Taxonomy 2017.

For more information, see the press release and the IFRS Taxonomy 2017 page on the IASB's website.

Conference on accrual accounting in public financial management

09 Mar 2017

Representatives of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) have met at a joint conference in Washington DC on 6 March 2017 to discuss how to maintain progress in the adoption of accruals accounting worldwide.

At the event, delegates took stock of the current landscape in public financial management and emphasised the need to increase both the availability and use of high-quality accrual information to improve public sector transparency and decision-making. They debated with an invited audience how accrual can support strong public financial management and the role of various stakeholders in developing demand for the better information it provides. IPSASB Chair Ian Carruthers stated: “IPSAS – high-quality global accrual-based accounting standards – enable governments to produce high-quality financial information that leads to better decision making and builds accountability and trust with citizens”. However, OECD reserach presented at the conference showed that most stakeholders are still not using governments’ accrual-based financial information in a meaningful way.

The event was also seen as a first step in deciding IPSASB’s strategic direction and projects for the next five years and how it will work with other bodies to strengthen public financial management globally.

A high-level summary of the event is available on the IPSASB website. The OECD study is available here.

Pre-meeting summaries for the March 2017 IFRS Interpretations Committee meeting

08 Mar 2017

The IFRS Interpretations Committee meets in London on Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 March 2017. The Committee will discuss 13 issues—three on-going, four previously issued agenda decisions and six new.

On-going discussions

The Committee will consider whether to recommend to the IASB that it finalise its narrow-scope amendments to IAS 19 Employee Benefits in relation to plan amendments, curtailments or settlements (Agenda Paper 2) and proposed amendments To IFRS 3 Business Combinations and IFRS 11 Joint Arrangements in relation to previously held interests (Agenda Paper 9). The Committee will also revisit IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and the discussions about modifications and exchanges of financial liabilities. The IASB has asked the Committee not to take this matter onto its agenda and to issue a tentative decision to that effect.

Finalisation of draft agenda decisions

The Committee will consider the public feedback on four matters which it had tentatively decided not to add to its agenda:

  • IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements: Investment entity consolidation (Agenda Paper 8A);
  • IAS 28 Investments in Associates and Joint Ventures: Fund manager’s significant influence over a fund (Agenda Paper 8B);
  • IAS 12 Income Taxes: Deferred taxes in asset acquisitions (Agenda Paper 8C); and
  • Commodity loans (Agenda Paper 8D)

In each case the staff are recommending that the Committee finalise the decision.

New issues

There are six new issues:

  • IAS 19 Employee Benefits: Discount rates (Agenda Paper 3)
  • IAS 33 Earnings per share: Tax consequences of dividends on participating equity instruments (Agenda Paper 4)
  • IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of IFRS: Subsidiary as a first time adopter (Agenda Paper 5)
  • IAS 12 Income taxes: Interest and penalties (Agenda Paper 6)
  • IAS 41 Agriculture: Fair value of biological assets growing on bearer plants (Agenda Paper 7)
  • IAS 32 Financial Instruments: Presentation: Centrally cleared derivatives (Agenda Paper 10)

In each case the staff are recommending that the Committee not take the matter onto its agenda.

The pre-meeting summaries for the meeting can be found here. We will update this page for our Deloitte observer notes from the meeting as they become available.

IASB Chairman speaks on Saudi Arabia’s vision

07 Mar 2017

At an event hosted by the Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), IASB chairman Hans Hoogervorst spoke about the accounting profession, IFRS, and the connection to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.

Mr Hoogervorst began by describing some of the changes that have occurred in the financial world over the past 25 years and how Saudi Arabia is positioned to help shape the future. He commented that the accounting profession works in the public interest and plays a vital role in fostering trust. Through the use of IFRS, information on a company becomes more comparable in the global community. He noted that by requiring the use of IFRS, Saudi Arabia will become more attractive to international investors and help it achieve the goals of Vision 2030, which aims at making Saudi Arabia the heart of the Arab and Islamic worlds, an investment powerhouse, and a hub connecting three continents.

For more information, see the press release and speech on the IASB’s website. More information on Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is available on the Kingdom's government website.

Agenda for March 2017 CMAC meeting

07 Mar 2017

Representatives from the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) will meet with the Capital Markets Advisory Council (CMAC) in London on 16 March 2017. The agenda for the meeting has been released.

The full agenda for the meeting is sum­marised below:

Thursday, 16 March 2017 (09:00-17:00)

  • Primary financial statements
  • Rate-regulated activities
  • Clarifications to IFRS 8 arising from the post-implementation review
  • IFRS 3: Definition of a business
  • Disclosure initiative
  • Insurance contracts

Agenda papers for this meeting are available on the IASB's website.

Public sector accounting roundtable

07 Mar 2017

Accountancy Europe (formerly the Federation of European Accountants, FEE) and the Institute of Registered Auditors of Luxembourg (IRE) will host a public sector roundtable on the topic of 'Public sector reform: Reporting and auditing accrual based accounts' on 30 June 2017.

The roundtable will start with an overview of the latest trends (e.g. integrated reporting) in public sector reporting. Afterwards, the focus will be on the challenges in auditing accrual based accounts. Different stakeholders will share their experiences and best practices concerning audit during a panel discussion.

The roundtable is free of charge but the number of participants is limited. Please click for more information and registration for the event on the Accountancy Europe website.

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