Profession pans plan to postpone IFRS

The taxman’s suggestion to delay new SME accounting standards to help implement new tax IT changes has won little support from the profession.
The introduction of iXBRL, the electronic tagging tax language, has been called a “car crash” and accountants have reacted angrily at suggestions that IFRS for SMEs takes a back seat to HMRC’s plans.

“iXBRL is yet another government IT slow motion car crash. The replacement of UK GAAP is an FRC slow motion car crash. Both of which are scheduled to collide and make a nightmare of a pile up,” said Chris Try on Accountancy Age’s website.

D M Marler, another web commentator, said: “Knowing how complex bespoke systems can be to implement successfully, wouldn’t it be better for HMRC to delay the compulsory deadlines for iXBRL?”

HMRC has admitted introducing both at the same time could be burdensome, how­ever, it is unwilling to back down on its introduction date.

A spokesman at HMRC told Accountancy Age: “The ASB (Accounting Standards Board) is aware of HMRC’s timeline for compulsory online filing and will be considering the timetable for its own proposals in the light of the responses received to its consultation. We are working closely together to ensure the ASB takes into account the implications for customers potentially affected.”

Ian Mackintosh, chairman of ASB, said: “We will definitely give consideration to all these suggestions and the reasons for them. We are not locked into a date for implementation.”

The date clash was brought to light by the commission’s advisory accountant with HMRC, Matt Blake, in a letter to the ASB, which suggested pushing the UK GAAP change date back a year to avoid coinciding with HMRC’s iXBRL filing deadline.

Further reading:

Taxman urges delay of UK GAAP replacement