Differences between Ind AS 1 and Existing AS 1

Differences between Ind AS 1 (Presentation of Financial Statements) and Existing AS 1 (Disclosure of

Accounting Policies)

Ind AS 1 generally deals with presentation of financial statements, whereas existing AS 1 (issued1979) deals only with the disclosure of accounting policies.

The scope of Ind AS 1 is thus much wider and line by line comparison of the difference with the present standard is not possible. However, the major requirements as laid down in Ind AS 1 are as follows:

(i)   An enterprise shall make an explicit statement in the financial statements of compliance with all the Indian Accounting Standards. Further, Ind AS 1 allows deviation from a requirement of an accounting standard in case the management concludes that compliance with Ind ASs will be misleading and if the regulatory framework requires or does not prohibit such a departure.

(ii)    Ind AS 1 requires presentation and provides criteria for classification of Current / Non- Current assets / liabilities.

(iii)    Ind AS 1 prohibits presentation of any item as extraordinary item in the statement of profit and loss or in the notes.

(iv)    Ind AS 1 requires disclosure of judgments made by management while framing of accounting policies. Also, it requires disclosure of key assumptions about the future and other sources of measurement uncertainty that have significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within next financial year.

(v)    Ind AS 1 requires classification of expenses to be presented based on nature of expenses.

(vi)     Ind AS 1 requires presentation of balance sheet as at the beginning of the earliest period when an entity applies an accounting policy retrospectively or makes a retrospective restatement of items in the financial statements, or when it reclassifies items in its financial statements.

(vii)    In respect of reclassification of items, Ind AS 1 requires disclosure of nature, amount and reason for reclassification in the notes to financial statements.

(viii)  Ind AS 1 requires the financial statements to include a Statement of Changes in Equity to be shown as a part of the balance sheet which, inter alia, includes reconciliation between opening and closing balance for each component of equity.

Source: www.icai.org