The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia is delighted that the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) has acknowledged the unprecedented level of objections to an international proposal that would add more red tape for small and medium sized businesses.  
 
Over 180 submissions, mainly from the Institute’s members were opposed to adding ‘regulatory filings’ as a definition of ‘general purpose financial statements’. (The AASB would normally receive on average less than 10 submissions.)  
 
The AASB will now lodge a submission with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) contending that the requirement to have general purpose financial reports for any entity that files with a Regulator (such as ASIC) is inappropriate and requires more detailed consideration.  
 
In the Institute’s view, the proposal is most definitely not in the interests of the Australian economy. The Institute’s CEO, Graham Meyer said that the proposed amendments add red tape.  
“The vast majority of businesses in Australia are small and do not participate in the listed capital markets. What small business sees is the costs of complying with more and more elaborate standards designed for participants in the capital markets which are of dubious relevance to them. To extend the reporting entity definition to cover any entity that files with a regulator, for example, large proprietary non-reporting entity companies, reporting to shareholders, adds unnecessarily to the burden of regulation.”  
 
The AASB’s proposals were in the Exposure Draft, ED 148: Proposed Amendments to AASB 101 Presentation of Financial Statements.