The European Union (EU) has adopted amendments
made to two International Standards on Auditing (ISA).

The revised versions of IAS 1 Presentation of
Financial Statements and IAS 19 Employee Benefits as
published by the International Accounting Standards Board have been
formally incorporated into EU law.

The main amendments to IAS 1 are:

  • Preserve the amendments made to IAS 1 in 2007
    to require profit or loss and OCI to be presented together. For
    example as either a single ‘statement of profit or loss and
    comprehensive income’, or a separate ‘statement of profit or loss’
    and a ‘statement of comprehensive income’ – rather than requiring a
    single continuous statement as was proposed in the exposure
    draft;
  • Require entities to group items presented in
    OCI based on whether they could be reclassified to profit or loss
    subsequently. For example, those that might be reclassified and
    those that will not be reclassified; and,
  • Require tax associated with items presented
    before tax to be shown separately for each of the two groups of OCI
    items (without changing the option to present items of OCI either
    before tax or net of tax).

The main amendments to IAS 19 are:

  • Require recognition of changes in the net
    defined benefit liability (asset) including immediate recognition
    of defined benefit cost, disaggregation of defined benefit cost
    into components, recognition of re-measurements in other
    comprehensive income, plan amendments, curtailments and
    settlements;
  •  Introduce enhanced disclosures about
    defined benefit plans;
  • Modify accounting for termination benefits,
    including distinguishing benefits provided in exchange for service
    and benefits provided in exchange for the termination of employment
    and affect the recognition and measurement of termination
    benefits;
  • Clarification of miscellaneous issues,
    including the classification of employee benefits, current
    estimates of mortality rates, tax and administration costs and
    risk-sharing and conditional indexation features; and,
  • Incorporate other matters submitted to the
    IFRS Interpretations Committee.

The IAS 1 amendments must be applied to annual
periods beginning on or after 1 July 2012 and IAS 19 at latest, to
annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2013.