Annual Improvements to IFRS Accounting Standards - Volume 11
In September 2023 the IASB has published the Exposure Draft of proposed amendments to IFRS Accounting Standards as part of its annual improvements process with a deadline for comments of 11 December 2023.
In accordance with the IASB’s due process as described in the IFRS Foundation
Due Process Handbook, proposed amendments to Accounting Standards that are
sufficiently minor or narrow in scope can be packaged together and exposed
in one document, even though the amendments are unrelated. Such
amendments are called ‘annual improvements’. Annual improvements are
limited to changes that either clarify the wording in an Accounting Standard
or correct relatively minor unintended consequences, oversights or conflicts
between the requirements of the Accounting Standards.
The following IFRS Accounting Standards and accompanying guidance would be affected by the proposed amendments:
- IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards - Hedge accounting by a first-time adopter
- IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures - Gain or loss on derecognition
- Guidance on implementing IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures
- Introduction;
- Disclosure of deferred difference between fair value and transaction price;
- Credit risk disclosures
- IFRS 9 Financial Instruments
- Derecognition of lease liabilities;
- Transaction price
- IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements - Determination of a ‘de facto agent’
- IAS 7 Statement of Cash Flows - Cost method.
The IASB proposes to apply the amendments retrospectively with an earlier application permitted.
EFRAG has published its Draft Comment Letter ("DCL") on 3 November 2023 with a comment period ended on 28 November 2023.
In its draft comment letter, EFRAG welcomed the package of the annual improvements included in the ED and agreed with the majority of the proposed amendments. In EFRAG's view, they would improve consistent application and understandability of the IFRS Accounting Standards.
However, EFRAG disagreed with the IASB's proposed amendment to IFRS 9 on derecognition of lease liabilities and recommended the IASB to clarify the interaction between IFRS 9 and IFRS 16 as part of a narrow-scope standard-setting project.
Regarding the proposed amendment to IFRS 10 on de facto agents, EFRAG recommended the IASB reconsider whether a look-up approach (i.e., including those that direct the activities of the investor) could ever be used for assessing if a party is a de facto agent for the purposes of the entity's consolidated financial statements.
Based on the feedback received from constituents in response to the DCL, EFRAG has published its Final Comment Letter on 8 December 2023.