FASB News
Twenty Projects on Technical Agenda to Be Reconsidered
FASB plans to determine whether it still wants to pursue 20 of the projects on its active technical agenda that were added under a different mix of board members than are serving today, new board Chairman Richard Jones said. Jones told FASB’s trustees on August 18 that the FASB “will need to spend some time reconfirming the board’s interest in pursuing those projects as well as their direction.” Jones took up the chairmanship post July 1, following the departure of Russell Golden, who left due to term limits. Board member Harold Schroeder will also leave the board next year due to term limits. Currently, the FASB has 30 projects on its active agenda, and nine on its research agenda, according to its agenda summary. “As our country continues to face the unprecedented economic effects of this pandemic, we all share a common purpose in preserving confidence in accounting standard-setting and the quality of financial reporting that support the transparency and information flow so essential to our capital markets and economy,” said Kathleen Casey, chair of the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF).
IASB News
Trustees of Publish Revised Due Process
The IFRS Foundation has published revisions to the process its rulemaking boards must undertake when developing international financial reporting standards (IFRS). The trustee organization revised its “Due Process Handbook,” the document that sets out the requirements the IASB and the IFRS Interpretations Committee must undertake in their technical standards-setting and other matters. The main changes are:
- clarifying the authority of agenda decisions published by the Interpretations Committee and their role in supporting consistent application of IFRSs, and enhancing the related due process by formally involving the IASB in their finalization; and
- reflecting recent developments in the IASB’s effect analysis process—assessing the likely effects of a new or amended IFRS standard—that emphasize the role of such analyses in standards-setting and make it clear that such analyses take place at all stages of standards-setting.
“The revised Due Process Handbook ensures that our due process reflects best practice which helps to further enhance stakeholder confidence in the outcomes of the work of the International Accounting Standards Board and the IFRS Interpretations Committee,” Alan Beller, chair of the Trustees Due Process Oversight Committee (DPOC), said in a statement.
2020 Taxonomy Updated for Coronavirus-Related Rent Concessions
The IASB published an update of the IFRS 2020 Taxonomy to reflect the amendments made to lease accounting rules for coronavirus-related rent concessions. The updates were issued as IFRS Taxonomy 2020 COVID-19-Related Rent Concessions Amendment to IFRS 16 and include elements that reflect the new disclosure requirements introduced by amendments to IFRS 16, Leases. The amendment to IFRS 16 requires that if a company applies the practical expedient it needs to disclose: 1) that it has applied the practical expedient to all rent concessions that meet certain types of conditions, or, if not applied to all such rent concessions, information about the nature of the contracts to which it has applied the practical expedient; and 2) the amount recognized in profit or loss for the reporting period to reflect changes in lease payments that arise from rent concessions to which the company has applied the practical expedient. The taxonomy also provides supporting content to help users better understand the accounting meaning of an element, the document states. The amendment does not affect lessors.
