Grant Thornton meets with the new Parliamentary Secretary David Bradbury on Financial Reporting Simplification

Shortly after the announcement of the new Gillard Government, Grant Thornton’s Head of Professional Standards, Keith Reilly, met with the new Parliamentary Secretary, David Bradbury, on 7 October 2010 to discuss various financial reporting issues.  Even though Mr. Bradbury had been appointed only four weeks earlier, he demonstrated a good knowledge of his new portfolio which covers financial reporting issues including the Standards Boards and ASIC. He also assists the Treasurer Wayne Swan in the development, implementation and administration of policies in the areas of corporate governance, competition and consumer policy,  and financial literacy, as well as sharing the responsibility with Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten for advising the Treasurer on taxations issues.

David was particularly interested in global developments on the IFRS for SMEs accounting standard and the strong level of support provided in the submissions to the AASB on differential reporting. Keith outlined the background to the development of reduced financial reporting. He noted the International Accounting Standards Board ‘s (IASB) rejection of the concept of a Reduced Disclosure Regime as it did not provide the needed simplification  in recognition and measurement accounting that is contained in IFRS for SMEs which has or is being adopted in over 60 countries according to the IASB that issues IFRS for the listed companies and IFRS for SMEs for the non listed market.

Other topics raised included the need for a review of the Government's dividend payments rules including the need to abolish the assets test, some tweaking of the no parent company financial statements reforms, the need for improved consultations on corporate law reform and the activities of the Financial Reporting Council that oversees accounting and auditing standards setting.

For more information on this topic, contact your usual Grant Thornton advisor or the author of this article.

Author, Keith Reilly, October 2010

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