AcSBs Report Reflects on the Adoption Strategy of IFRS

The AcSB has issued its reports for the annual year 2011-12. The report reflects on the Canadian Accounting Standards Board’s strategy regarding adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards for Canada public organizations as well as granting permissions to other enterprises to use IFRS.

The report consists of a detailed section on the Canadian Accounting Standards Board’s IFRS related adoption plan. The annual report pointed out that the feedbacks received recently states that the not many are satisfied with the IFRS and few stakeholders are questioning or do not agree with the idea of adopting International Financial Reporting Standards. However, the report also clarified that there a very few people who are opposing the strategy vocally.

According to AcSB some of the points that have been criticized include issues that are specific to different industries, transition cost (especially for smaller organizations) and Canada’s idea of adopting IFRS in view of the current developments in the US.

Despite these issues, the Canadian Accounting Standards Board stated that as per its opinion no evidence or arguments can question the strategy and even though IFRS needs to be improved, it is the best possible and practical way to achieve the objective of a unified set of globally acceptable reporting related standards that can contribute towards the improvement of the global financial markets’ functioning.

The annual report also noted that the unwanted divergence in accounting practice on certain International Financial Reporting Standards interpretative matters and the fact that the Canadian Accounting Standards Board was less satisfied with the International Financial Reporting Standards Interpretations Committee in the last few years was because it failed to offer a very helpful guide in terms of IFRS application.

Few of the concerns of AcSB’s have been addressed partially by some of the reviews conducted by Monitoring Board and the Foundation Trustees of the IFRS.

As far as the industry related issues are concerned, the annual report emphasizes on the unavailability of the specific guide on financial accounting of the rate regulation effects as well as AcBS opinion that the International Accounting Standards Board should reinitiate its project on the issue as a major response to the agenda consultation procedure.