Canada contemplates US fair value rule change
Changes offer greater flexibility in accounting for bad assets
Canada’s accounting standard setter is considering adopting changes announced
by its US counterpart to help companies deal with impaired assets.
The changes will give banks and other holders of financial assets more
flexibility in reporting the values of bad assets before they are able to
recover value.
Chairman of Canada’s Accounting Standards Board Paul Cherry says he wants to
reconcile the differences in the approaches of International Financial Reporting
Standards and US standards in the treatment of impaired assets so Canadian firms
are on equal footing with their US counterparts.
He added that he hoped US moves to bring its accounting standards more in
line with IFRS would continue.
