To allow our home page to load more quickly, we have moved our unofficial notes from the January 2004 IASB meeting to a Separate Page.

Half-yearly reporting remains mandatory. Another rule adopted in April 2003 requires NextEconomy (technology) and NextPrime (more traditional) companies that are not already using IFRS to disclose, in half-yearly reports for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2004, the effects of converting to IFRS in 2005. That rule has not been changed. Euronext is an amalgamation of the stock exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, and Paris.

No Board or IFRIC approval is needed for such corrections. The IASB will post editorial corrections as and when needed, but normally not more frequently than monthly. The Board has also posted tables listing all of the consequential amendments made by each of the fifteen standards revised in the Improvements project. Consequential amendments are changes to a standard that are caused by the issue, revision, or amendment of another standard.

Mr Collomb replaces Didier Pineau-Valencienne, whose term ended on 31 December 2003. Mr Collomb is currently chairman of Association Francaise des Entreprises Privees. He also serves as a director of Total, ATCO, and Vivendi Universal, and is a member of the Supervisory Board of Allianz and the Advisory Board of Unilever. Click for Press Release (PDF 18k).

To allow our home page to load more quickly, we have moved our unofficial notes from the January 2004 IASB meeting to a Separate Page.

At 31 December 2003, 57 accounting standards and 4 interpretations were in force. Also, exposure drafts of three standards and exposure drafts of four governmental accounting standards were outstanding at that date.

The Preparatory Paper for the meeting, setting out the discussion agenda, states: "The Commission will continue to promote the emergence of an agreement between all stakeholders on International Accounting Standards."

SAB 104 updates the revenue recognition guidance in the Codification of Staff Accounting Bulletins that was released in May 2003. The revised guidance applies to calendar 2003 financial reports of all SEC registrants, domestic and foreign.

The meeting will be broadcast live and will also be archived. You can watch the January meeting without charge. If the tests are successful, the IASB plans to provide the Webcast service for all future London meetings, but a charge will be imposed to cover the IASB's costs.

ACCA has recommended that the British government not pursue that approach. The ACCA research report, A Conceptual Framework for the Taxable Income of Businesses, and How to Apply it under IFRS, by Professor Christopher Nobes of Reading University, examines the advantages and disadvantages of conforming tax practice with financial reporting practice and concludes that tax and financial reporting should have separate rules and, therefore, be disconnected. The full report may be downloaded from ACCA's Website (PDF 248k). Click for Press Release (PDF 22k).