The AASB have made a tentative decision to implement the revised differential reporting framework in two stages. As a first stage, and keeping the current reporting entity concept intact, the Reduced Disclosure Regime will be made available to all entities preparing general purpose financial statements (e.g. all reporting entities that are not publicly accountable and not a Federal, State, Territory or Local government).

The AASB has reacted to the concerns raised in submissions to ED 192 about the increased reporting burden that the revised differential reporting framework would have on entities currently preparing special purpose financial reports and has decided to undertake further research into the impacts as a second stage of the development of the RDR. Once the results of this research are analysed, the AASB may make further amendments to the RDR in the future.

It was also agreed that the mandatory application of the new standard would be deferred until annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 July 2013.

The AASB also noted that there was a distinct lack of support for implementation of the IASBs IFRS for SME standard here in Australia although would monitor this standard for future developments.

Moore Stephens made a submission to the AASB detailing our thoughts on the proposed revisions to differential reporting. This submission can be found on the AASB’s website. The actions being taken by the AASB are largely consistent with the content of our submission.