The Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) held a meeting on 12 - 13 November 2008 in Melbourne.
Amending standards
The board made AASB 2008-11 Amendments to Australian accounting standard - business combinations among not-for-profit entities (AASB 3), a standard which requires the revised AASB 3 Business combinations to be applied by not-for-profit entities, except where there is common control. AASB 2008-11 applies to annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 July 2009 with early adoption permitted for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 30 June 2007.
The board also decided that entities applying AASB 1023 General insurance contracts and AASB 1038 Life insurance contracts should not be permitted to apply the amendments relating to AASB 2008-10 Amendments to Australian accounting standard - reclassification of financial assets even under rare circumstances. A draft exposure draft will be considered at the next board meeting.
Draft pronouncements
The board considered the following:
- a revised draft exposure draft on superannuation plans and approved deposit funds; a replacement standard to AAS 25 Financial reporting by superannuation plans
- a draft proposed interpretation 10XX Australian superannuation contributions tax
The board will further consider revised versions at its next meeting.
Differential reporting
The board agreed that while general purpose financial statements shall be prepared in accordance with the accounting standards, it is the existence of users of general purpose financial statements that defines it. In other words, the requirement to prepare financial statements in accordance with accounting standards is not the definition of general purpose financial statement'.
The board also tentatively decided that preparation in accordance with accounting standards' means application of all standards, and not a subset of the standards. The board noted that the term accounting standards' may mean the full suite of standards, the IFRS for private entities (when issued and adopted by the AASB) or any other set of reporting requirements decided by the AASB for the preparation of general purpose financial statements.
The board considered the status of the AASB policy statements and decided to withdraw them with immediate effect.
The AASB welcomed the appointment of Bruce Porter as acting chairman on a part-time basis pending the announcement of a full-time chair.
Information on the presentation of financial statements, conceptual framework and other projects can be found in the AASB's Action alert number 120 dated 14 November 2008.
For futher information, and the latest alert, please visit the AASB website.
