ASB Chairman Ian Mackintosh and Technical Director David Loweth made a presentation to a CCAB-I audience at Chartered Accountants House today on the ASB's latest thinking with regard to its proposals on the future of UK and Irish GAAP. This follows the consultation on the policy document the Board published in August 2009 and represents the Board's tentative decisions following its consideration of the responses received.
Consistent with its policy document, the ASB proposes a differential financial reporting framework that is based on public accountability, replacing current UK and Irish GAAP with a tiered approach incorporating EU-endorsed IFRS, the IFRS for SMEs and the Financial Reporting Standard for Smaller Entities (FRSSE).
The major differences from the policy document and the Board’s now tentative proposals (see the most recent 'Inside Track' publication for further details) include:
- introducing the reduced disclosure framework for subsidiaries which gives relief for subsidiaries of both tier 1 and tier 2 entities;
- permitting small publicly accountable entities that meet all three of the qualifying conditions to qualify as small companies under the Comapnies Acts but are excluded from the regime to apply the IFRS for SMEs;
- amending IFRS for SMEs which includes replacing section 29 of the IFRS for SMEs with IAS 12 ‘Income Taxes’;
- providing application guidance on the definition of entities which have public accountability; and
- providing transitional relief for dormant companies.
The ASB presented to an audience of in excess of 40 attendees drawn from a wide variety of sectors including the accounting profession, industry, credit unions, cooperatives, funds, the charities sector and various regulators and a very useful question and answer session followed the presentation (available by clicking here).
The ASB will consult further on the proposals and intends to issue an exposure draft for comment by October 2010.