Airlines and pandemics – make them account for something?

I came across an interesting article by Gediminas Ziemelis: New IFRS for airlines with provisions for virus impact? The article sets out the heavy impact of the ongoing pandemic on the airline industry, one in which – as has been quite widely commented upon – “some airlines announced dividends to shareholders from last year’s profit…

Just when you didn’t think IFRS could get any better…it does!

The IASB recently issued Annual Improvements to IFRS Standards 2018-2020. There are only four items (proving once again that it was almost perfect already). Here they are. Financial instruments IFRS 9 regards an exchange of debt instruments with substantially different terms between an existing borrower and a lender as an extinguishment of the original financial liability…

My imagined message to Trump from the IFRS Foundation

So this is what I wrote here just after Trump was elected: I confess I see no hint of a “bright side” to this abomination. Have deeply-rooted anxieties ever settled on such a wretchedly unsuitable means of deliverance? It provides harsh evidence that the world is succumbing to irrationality and recklessness, regardless that its complexities and challenges have never…

Your friendly covid-19 financial reporting round-up…

If anyone is having trouble locating guidance and commentary about the impact of covid-19 on financial reporting… …it’s only because they’re not looking hard enough. In Canada, to name a couple, there’s the regulatory covid-19 information hub, and CPA Canada’s website of covid-19 information resources, the latter of which leads to dozens of other links.…

Covid-19-related rent concessions – ready to apply!

The IASB has issued Covid-19-related rent concessions, amendments to IFRS 16, effective for annual reporting periods beginning on or after June 1, 2020, with earlier application permitted. This is how the accompanying news release summed it up: The amendment exempts lessees from having to consider individual lease contracts to determine whether rent concessions occurring as…

Small is Beautiful – an accounting take

I recently got round to reading E. F. Schumacher’s 1973 book Small is Beautiful: a Study of Economics as if People Mattered, inspired by a post on Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings blog. Popova says: “Sharing an ideological kinship with such influential minds as Tolstoy and Gandhi, Schumacher’s is a masterwork of intelligent counterculture, applying history’s…

Goodwill and impairment – did they find a better way?

As we addressed previously, the IASB has published “a Discussion Paper on possible improvements to the information companies report about acquisitions of businesses to help investors assess how successful those acquisitions have been.” We noted before that the IASB “has concluded that there is no alternative that can target goodwill better and at reasonable cost.” Let’s…