IFRS 18, or: my to-do list just grew!

I haven’t said much here about IFRS 18, Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements… There’s no particular reason for that, other than perhaps generally trying to write about something that other firms and accounting commentators aren’t writing about, at least not in quite the same way. And also, as it’s only effective for annual reporting…

Improvements to IAS 37, or: clearing the smoke

The IASB has issued Provisions – Targeted Improvements, an exposure draft of proposed amendments to IAS 37. You’ll recall that a provision is “a liability of uncertain timing or amount” and under IAS 37 in its current form is recognized when an entity has a present obligation (legal or constructive) as a result of a…

Trouble at Macy’s, or: how’s this for a Thanksgiving parade!

Here’s one of the stranger recent entries from the annals of internal control breakdown, as reported by the New York Times: The article provides the following commentary: Indeed, I’m sure not the only one who initially assumed on seeing the headline that the story would be about the creation of fictitious invoices as a vehicle…

Revenue recognition for carbon credits: how about today!

Here’s another fact pattern recently discussed by Canada’s IFRS Accounting Standards Discussion Group: The fact pattern lists a series of specific activities for which the company is responsible over the 40-year term. For purposes of the analysis, the group assumed the sales of the carbon credits to be material to the Company and to be…

The CSA’s continuous disclosure report, or: modern problems!

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) recently published a biennial report on its Continuous Disclosure Review Program, providing an overview of results and highlighting key findings and outcomes over the past two fiscal years. Most of the contents are familiar (some of them, like “issuers not providing issuer-specific details or sufficient contextual information to enable investors to understand…

Researching the cash flow statement, or: hot button!

The IASB recently announced “the start of a research project to review and improve the requirements for the statement of cash flows and related matters in IFRS Accounting Standards.” This is in response to feedback during the IASB’s most recent agenda consultation, with investors, companies and others identifying this area as a high priority. The…

CPA Canada versus Trudeau, or: taken to task!

“CPA Canada takes PM to task over remarks on accountants,” announced a recent release. It’s worth reproducing the entire bulletin here: Fair enough, but wealthy and not-so-wealthy Canadians alike do actually “use accountants” to reduce their taxes from what they might otherwise haplessly pay, don’t they? I couldn’t readily find a clip of the Prime…

Canada’s proposed sustainability standards, or: you’re trying to crush us!

As we addressed here, the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board issued for comment its first two proposed standards. These are proposed Canadian Sustainability Disclosure Standard (CSDS) 1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information  and CSDS 2 Climate-related Disclosures, built on the pre-existing IFRS S1 and S2; the CSSB didn’t propose any major changes to…