FRSC Issues for Comment IASB Proposed Improvements to IFRSs

The Financial Reporting Standards Council (FRSC) has issued an Invitation to Comment on an Exposure Draft (ED) of proposed Improvements to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) under its first annual improvements project.

The IASB has adopted an annual process to deal with non-urgent, minor amendments to IFRSs (the ‘annual improvements process’). Issues dealt with in this process arise from matters raised by the International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee (IFRIC) and suggestions from staff or practitioners, and focus on areas of inconsistency in IFRSs or where clarification of wording is required. The process will involve an annual project in which the IASB  discusses and decides on proposed improvements to IFRSs as they arise throughout the year. In October each year, an omnibus exposure draft of the collected proposals will be published for public comment. After the IASB has considered the comments received, it will aim to issue the amendments in final form in the following April, with an effective date of January 1 of the following year.

The first annual improvements project includes proposed miscellaneous amendments to 25 IFRSs. The proposals range from a restructuring of IFRS 1, First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards, mainly to remove redundant transitional provisions, to minor changes of wording to clarify the meaning and remove unintended inconsistencies between IFRSs.

The FRSC Invitation to Comment and the IFRS ED may be downloaded from the Philippine Financial Reporting Standards (PFRS) website, within the PICPA website (www.picpa.com.ph). IFRS ED may also be downloaded from the IAS website (www.iasb.org).

The FRSC invites comments on the IFRS ED by December 27, 2007, to enable the Council to consider and include comments from Philippine respondents in its response to the IASB.