The Chartered Accountants ANZ/CPA Australia joint submission on the proposed amendments to APES 205 Conformity with Accounting Standards (ED 03/22)  supports the APESB’s decision to make only minor conforming changes to this standard in response to the completion of the AASB’s financial reporting framework reform project for the for-profit sector.  

The AASB reforms impose additional disclosure requirements on certain special purpose financial statements (SPFS) in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sector that overlap with specific requirements already in APES 205. However, the APESB is of the view that these additional disclosures are not justified on a cost benefit basis to the SPFS that are outside the scope of the AASB’s reforms. Therefore  the general level of general disclosure prescribed by APES 205 for SPFS does not need amending.  

The joint submission supports this approach to ensure that an unnecessary burden is not placed on preparers, especially where there is limited evidence that users require additional information that these SPFS do not already provide. This message has underpinned our responses to the AASB’s reform journey and resulted in the additional disclosures being restricted to those SPFS where users have actually specified that they require reporting “in compliance with Australian accounting standards”.

While we agree that significant change to APES 205 is unnecessary, the submission recommends some revised wording to ensure that the impact of the AASB reforms are clearly understood and applied by members. It also suggests an additional change in the interests of promoting consistency with revised accounting terminology more broadly (changing from “significant” to “material” accounting policies”).