The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has published an exposure draft (ED) of proposed amendments to four International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) under its annual improvements project, which is a streamlined process for making necessary, but non-urgent, changes to IFRSs that will not be included as part of another major project.
There are five amendments in total. For IFRS 5 Non-current Assets Held for Sale and Discontinued Operations, IASB is adding specific guidance for cases in which an entity reclassifies an asset from held for sale to held for distribution or vice versa and cases in which held-for-distribution accounting is discontinued.
IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures is subject to two amendments. One is to add additional guidance to clarify whether a servicing contract is continuing involvement in a transferred asset for the purpose of determining the disclosures required. The second clarifies the applicability of the amendments to IFRS 7 on offsetting disclosures to condensed interim financial statements.
IAS 19 Employee Benefitsis being amended to clarify that the high quality corporate bonds used in estimating the discount rate for post-employment benefits should be denominated in the same currency as the benefits to be paid (thus, the depth of the market for high quality corporate bonds should be assessed at currency level).
IAS 34 Interim Financial Reportingis updated to clarify the meaning of 'elsewhere in the interim report' and to require a cross-reference.
The proposed effective date for the amendments is for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2016, although the IASB proposes that entities would be permitted to apply them earlier. The deadline for feedback on the proposals is 13 March 2014.
The Exposure Draft Annual Improvements to IFRSs 2012-2014 Cycle can be accessed HERE
