IAASA, Ireland’s accounting enforcer, has today published an Information Note IAS 36 Impairment of Assets – information requests from IAASA.
The objective of IAS 36 is to prescribe the procedures that an issuer applies to ensure that its assets are carried at no more than their recoverable amount. An asset is carried at more than its recoverable amount if its carrying amount exceeds the amount to be recovered through use or sale of the asset. If this is the case, the asset is described as impaired and IAS 36 requires the entity to recognise an impairment loss.
Given the economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19, IAASA expects that issuers will incorporate higher levels of uncertainty into their impairment testing assumptions. In these circumstances, issuers should recognise the importance to users of financial reports of high quality disclosures regarding impairment reviews. To assist issuers in providing useful impairment disclosures, IAASA is publishing this Information Note.
This Information Note lists the impairment review information requests that IAASA has made to issuers during previous financial statement examinations. Consideration by issuers as to how they might respond to such questioning may assist issuers in providing high quality information to users of their financial reports.
The Information Note is available here.