The Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) has released revised guidance to assist the auditors in providing their audit report on the “remuneration report” contained in the financial statements under section 300A of the Corporations Act as required by section 308(3C). 
 
Titled GS008 The Auditors report on a Remuneration Report pursuant to Section 300A of the Corporations Act 2001, it replaces the previous guidance on the disclosure requirements of AASB 124 issued in 2006. 
 
The guidance has been updated to reflect the changes made to Section 300A in June 2007 by the Corporations Law Amendment (Simpler Regulatory System) Act and the recent changes made by the AASB to the key management personnel disclosures contained in AASB 124 (refer ANT22/2008). The combined effect of these changes is to allow all listed and unlisted public companies that are disclosing entities to only disclose the detailed remuneration of key management personnel in their directors’ report, and not duplicate the information in their financial report. The changes are effective for financial reporting periods ending on or after 30 June 2008. 
 
The Guidance explains the nature of the additional obligations that are imposed by the section 308(3C) requirements to report on a remuneration report contained within the directors’ report. It also provides specimen wording for the separate remuneration report paragraph which should be included in the auditors report after the audit opinion on the financial statements. Examples of both a “clean” and a modified opinion are included in the appendices to GS 008. 
 
A copy of GS008 is available on the AUASB website.