IASB Drops Rule Requiring Detailed Pension Asset Reporting

The dropped requirement was part of a larger move by IASB to align IASB and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) provisions. This move would have aligned IASB’s rules on employee benefits with FASB’s Statement No. 12, which deals with employer disclosure of postretirement benefits, according to IASB.   The FASB rule does not have a rule that require companies to produce expected rates of return for specific asset classes.

The rule would have required reporting on expected rates of return by asset class, such as property, equity, and debt.

The London-based board voted six to eight in not adopting the rule in the final standards produced by the convergence project. The final standards are expected to be release by the end of the present quarter.

Instead of the detailed footnotes required under the dropped proposition, IASB will now require a more general disclosure that calls for further data by major asset class.

Also, the IASB tentatively ruled that they would require footnote reporting on pension asset amounts and obligations for the current period, as well