The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) this week issued a minor amendment to its requirements on accounting for pension plans, and separately published for public comment a proposal to amend IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards.
Amendment to pensions accounting
The amendment is to IFRIC 14, which is itself an interpretation of IAS 19 Employee Benefits. The amendment applies in the limited circumstances when an entity is subject to minimum funding requirements and makes an early payment of contributions to cover those requirements. The amendment permits such an entity to treat the benefit of such an early payment as an asset.
The amendment, Prepayments of a Minimum Funding Requirement, has an effective date for mandatory adoption of 1 January 2011, with early adoption permitted for 2009 year-end financial statements.
Proposed limited exemption amendment for first-time adopters of IFRSs
The proposed amendment to IFRS 1 would provide first-time adopters with the same relief available to those already applying IFRSs when they first apply Improving Disclosures about Financial Instruments (Amendments to IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures) issued in March 2009.
The exposure draft is a short document on which the IASB believes that there is likely to be a broad consensus. It has therefore set a 30-day comment period.
The proposals are set out in an exposure draft Limited Exemption from Comparative IFRS 7 Disclosures for First-time Adopters (proposed amendment to IFRS 1), on which the IASB invites comments by 29 December 2009.