Here’s the abstract of an article available online, written by Shaul Hayoun of the University of Edinburgh: Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on the non-essence of accounting by focusing on financial accounting’s distinct technology: financial statements. Complementing the genealogical perspective on accounting’s changing socio-historical settings, it proposes a…
A recent article on the Economia website considers the subject of “generational accounting.” Written by Paul Wallace, it introduces the topic as follows: Countries including the US, Spain and Britain have become increasingly defined by age rather than class. Polarization tends to come to the fore politically during elections, but the economic and social roots…
Here’s an issue that doesn’t come up too often, as reported on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website: A claim by New Brunswick’s Liquor Corporation that its profits last year “remained steady” was true only because of seven extra days it included in its financial year, an issue that needs to be explained in detail, accounting…
Problems arising in assessing the application of one of the key scope exemptions applying to financial instruments Here’s another of the issues discussed in the past by Canada’s IFRS Discussion Group: The scope of IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and of IAS 32 Financial Instruments: Presentation include guidance on when certain contracts to buy or sell…
We’ve already looked in the past at one accounting issue relating to cryptocurrencies, as addressed by CPA Canada’s IFRS Discussion Group. Here’s the background to another one: A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that is used to record transactions over a network of participating computers. The ledger tracks the creation and transfer of cryptocurrencies…
From the integratedreporting.org website, we learn that the Institute of Public Auditors in Germany (Institut der Wirtschaftsprüfer in Deutschland) has released a position paper on the future of corporate reporting. It’s only available in German, but one of the authors provides an English-language summary. We’ve covered a couple of the main points before. First is the contention that…
A European example of misapplied standards… Here’s another of the issues arising from extracts of enforcement decisions issued in the past by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) (for more background see here); this is from their 21st edition: The issuer is an IT company which pursued in court another company, Entity X, for…
Here’s the background to another issue recently discussed by CPA Canada’s IFRS Discussion Group: Paragraph 12 of IAS 41 Agriculture states that “[a] biological asset shall be measured on initial recognition and at the end of each reporting period at its fair value less costs to sell [FVLCS], except for the case described in paragraph…
The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have published for comment Proposed National Instrument 52-112 Non-GAAP and Other Financial Measures Disclosure, which establishes disclosure requirements for issuers that disclose non-GAAP and other financial measures. We’ve covered this topic here many times before (certainly more than I intended to). In a nutshell, the main Canadian regulatory reference point at present…
Let’s take a look at the ongoing discussions relating to presenting unusual or frequent items, taking place as part of the primary financial statements project. The staff paper prepared for the September 2018 IASB meeting sums up the issues and some possible ways ahead. The underlying premise, of course, is: Non–persistent items do not enhance…
John Hughes IFRS Blog 