International Accounting Standard 37 (IAS37)
The International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) issued IAS37 Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets in September 1998. It replaced parts of IAS10 Contingencies and became operative for annual financial statements covering periods beginning on or after 1 July 1999. Before the announcement of IAS37, different countries use various ways to verify their provisions, which bring the problem of inconsistency. Some enterprises confirm their provisions, depending on whether to undertake current obligation or not. While some other enterprises are according to managers’ willingness of proceeding future payments to confirm their preparations. Therefore, the results are: Different types of business enterprises have different classification of provisions, so it creates inconsistency. This jeopardizes comparability of different enterprise’s financial statements. It provides the opportunity for certain enterprises to manipulate their profits. For example, the cost should be recognized in the period but may be moved to other period to confirm; the cost should be Continue reading