“IFRS could be stripped of accountancy watchdog role”, says the title of a recent article in the UK Telegraph newspaper. According to the writer, Louise Armitstead, the IFRS Foundation “has been severely criticized by MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) for poor governance structures, a lack of transparency and its ‘close links to the accounting…
Although financial reporting has brought a miraculous amount of clarity and structure to the world, it’s also responsible for a colossal volume of wasted time…. A recent manifestation of this is IFRIC Interpretation 21 Levies, effective for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2014. IFRIC 21 was driven by requests for guidance on…
The IASB has issued IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts, effective for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2016. For those who aren’t familiar with the area, IFRS 14 brings into IFRS for the first time a practice long-established elsewhere, that entities subject to rate-regulation (power suppliers and suchlike) can justify recognizing assets and…
Issues arising in determining whether to recognize revenue on a gross or net basis Here’s an extract from the Alberta Securities Commission’s recent Corporate Finance Disclosure Report, issued in December 2013: “IAS 18, paragraph 8 states that revenue includes only the gross inflows of economic benefits received and receivable by the entity on its own…
The IASB’s recent Annual Improvements includes some important changes to IFRS 2 For my money, IFRS 2 Share-based payment is one of the more poorly expressed standards, in that it does a weak job of laying out its core principles, and all but encourages a reader to get lost in definitions and complexities, without really…
The IASB has released its latest exposure draft of annual improvements to IFRSs, with comments to be received by March 13, 2014 To obtain this post, and additional articles on IFRS by other writers, go to http://ifrs.wileyvws.com/ifrs-news-and-resources/ (free sign-up required)
Observations on a recent address by IASB Chair Hans Hoogervorst I’m sure Hans Hoogervorst is a capable Chair of the IASB in most respects, but his speeches – at least as published on the website – are consistently awful. A recent example delivered in Tokyo, titled “Defining Profit or Loss and OCI… can it be…
The IASB sheds more light on a key aspect of IFRS 8 Converting to IFRS didn’t create too many difficulties for most Canadian companies in the area of segment reporting, because the main points of IFRS 8 are much the same as those in old Canadian GAAP standard CICA 1701: they both build on the…
This was one of the most popular posts on my old blog, which surprised me a bit, but maybe the exam room holds nostalgic appeal for many of us… I’m no doubt misremembering, but I’d almost swear that half the exercises when I was training to be an accountant related to figuring out eliminations of…
A recent European example of issues related to the cash flow statement, and an example of applying a prominent financial instrument exemption Here’s another of the issues from some extracts of enforcement decisions recently issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) (for more background see here): “The issuer operates in the mining industry…
John Hughes IFRS Blog 