Consultation: IASB's survey on accounting for intangibles

ACCA welcomes the opportunity to provide views in response to the IASB’s invitation to take part in its short survey on the requirements for reporting on intangibles in financial statements.

We commend the IASB’s effort in assessing whether the requirements in IAS 38 Intangible Assets remain relevant and continue to reflect current business models, as well as considering potential links to the management commentary project and the work of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

Our response was developed based on our research into the capitalisation (1) and reporting (2) of research and development (R&D) in financial statements that were prepared using the IFRS Accounting Standards. We also supplemented our comments with anecdotal feedback from past roundtables supporting our numerous corporate reporting-related projects.

We hope our response will help the IASB to determine:

• the problem that needs to be solved,
• the scope of the project, and
• the phasing of the work in the IASB’s Intangible Assets project.

We have submitted detailed comments to the specific questions in the survey for companies and other stakeholders. A copy of our response is enclosed for reference.

(1) ACCA (2019), The capitalisation debate: R&D expenditure, disclosure content and quantity, and stakeholder views

(2) ACCA (2023), Reporting of R&D: Disclosure without recognition?

To read the response in full, please download the consultation document on this page.