At its December meeting the AASB indicated that it will amend AASB 134 ‘Interim Financial Reporting’ to reflect the view that entities subject to Section 303 of the Corporations Act 2001 should not be required to include parent financial statements with their consolidated half-year reports. The G100 wrote to the Treasury to point out the anomaly resulting from the CLERP 9 amendments.
The AASB agreed to approve a revised AASB 119 ‘Employee Benefits’ that includes the ‘corridor’ approach and the direct-to-retained earnings approach as further options for accounting for actuarial gains and losses related to defined benefit superannuation plans. The revised AASB 119 will be operative for reporting periods commencing on or after 1 January 2005.
The AASB has issued AASB 6 ‘Exploration for and Evaluation of Mineral Resources’, the Australian equivalent to IFRS 6, which also includes consequential amendments to AASB 1, AASB 116 and AASB 138. These changes apply for reporting periods commencing on or after 1 January 2005. AASB 6 supersedes the existing Standard AASB 1022 ‘Accounting for the Extractive Industries’.
The AASB also agreed to amend AASB 121 ‘The Effect of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates’ to address an inconsistency between AASB 121 and the Corporations Act in relation to presentation currency. The Corporations Act assumes there is only one profit amount for a company whereas AASB 121 allows companies to present multiple financial reports in different currencies. AASB 121 is to be amended to specify that only one financial report can purport to be in accordance with the Corporations Act.
The AASB is considering whether to withdraw AASB 1046 ‘Director and Executive Disclosures by Disclosing Entities’ since many of the disclosures relating to remuneration are requested by s300A of the Corporations Act.
The AASB proposes to issue a series of ‘omnibus’ standards to make consequential amendments to Australian equivalents to IFRSs rather than re-issuing the full text of the standards as hard copy. In order to facilitate identification of the ‘omnibus’ standards they will have a separate numbering sequence, for example, 2004-1 etc. However, consistent with Australian government policy on publishing legislation, the web site versions of the consequentially amended standards will be updated with history notes identifying the sources of the amendments. In this way the web site versions will be the current and complete versions of the standards.
The G100 has received a request from the AASB inviting members to participate in the AASB/IASB research project on accounting for intangible assets. Initially this project will focus on the reliability of measurement of these assets. Please contact the Secretariat (g100@group100.com.au) for further information about participating.
The AASB has issued ED 138 ‘Concise Financial Reports: Revisions to AASB 1039’ with comments required by 28 February 2005. Please forward any comments to the Secretariat by 14 February 2005.
Deloitte has issued an Alert drawing attention to the requirement to have hedge documentation in place at transition date on first-time adoption of AASB 139. Designation, at or before transition date, is a pre-condition for an entity applying hedge accounting in IFRS balance sheet.
The PJC on Corporations & Financial Services announced it will inquire into the Year 2005 Standards and report to Parliament on 8 February 2005. The PJC is principally examining whether the standards are consistent with the Corporations Act and whether they will act in furtherance of the objectives of the Act. Submissions are requested by 21 January 2005. The G100 will make a submission and comments by members on the issues being examined by the JPC are welcome.
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A
PROSPEROUS 2005
THE SECRETARIAT
(All submissions can be accessed via the website www.group100.com.au)
December 2004
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