IAASA, Ireland’s accounting enforcer, has today published an Information Note highlighting the findings of a desktop review on the IFRS 16 Leases disclosures in the 2019 half-yearly financial reports.
The purpose of this Information Note is to provide readers with:
- an analysis of the nature, extent and impact of the information disclosed by issuers in relation to the transition to IFRS 16 Leases in their 2019 half-yearly financial reports; and
- a comparison of the actual transitional impact of IFRS 16 as disclosed in the half-yearly financial statements with the estimated impact disclosed by the issuers in their prior year annual financial statements.
IFRS 16 is required to be applied to annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2019. As such, the 2019 half-yearly financial reports are the first financial statements that issuers had to prepare and publish in which mandatory IFRS 16 information was required, including the impact of transition.
Overall, IAASA found that issuers provided high quality disclosures regarding their accounting policy for leases and the financial impact of the adoption of the new accounting standard.
The most significant impact for issuers’ reported results arising from transitioning to IFRS 16 is that leases previously defined as operating leases under IAS 17 and treated as “off-balance sheet” are now required to be recognised in the Statement of Financial Position as a “right of use” asset and a related lease liability.
The Information Note is available here