IASB unveils profit and loss proposals

The International Accounting Standards Board has rolled out proposals to improve the consistency of how Other Comprehensive Income is presented.

The body is proposing that companies present profit or loss and other comprehensive income in separate sections of a continuous statement.

The IASB is also proposing to group items in OCI on the basis of whether they will eventually be ‘recycled’ into the profit or loss section of the income statement.

The proposals have been jointly developed with the US Financial Accounting Standards Board, which is also seeking public comment on changes to the presentation of OCI as part of their financial instruments proposals.

Commenting on the proposals, Sir David Tweedie, chairman of the IASB said:

"We have recently published several proposals that broaden the use of Other Comprehensive Income. It is therefore appropriate that this information is presented clearly and in a uniform manner.

If adopted, these proposals will result in further convergence of IFRSs and US GAAP in an increasingly important part of the financial statements."

Further reading:

An IASB ‘Snapshot’, a high level summary of the proposals and a Frequently Asked Questions document detailing the proposals, are available to download free of charge from the project page.