New Standards on Consolidation, Joint Arrangements and Related Disclosures

The Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) has now issued six new Accounting Standards dealing with the accounting and disclosure requirements relating to consolidation and consolidated financial statements, joint arrangements, associates and joint ventures. The new Standards are as follows:

• AASB 10 "Consolidated Financial Statements";
• AASB 11 "Joint Arrangements";
• AASB 12 "Disclosure of Interests in Other Entities";
• AASB 127 "Separate Financial Statements";
• AASB 128 "Investments in Associates and Joint Ventures"; and
• AASB 2011-7 "Amendments to Australian Accounting Standards arising from the Consolidation and Joint Arrangements Standards".

The new Standards reflect the corresponding new Standards recently issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) which have been discussed in recent issues of Accounting and ASIC Compliance (ie IFRS 10 in July and August 2011, IFRS 11 in August 2011 and IFRS 12 later in this issue).

Effective date

Each of the new Standards has an effective date for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2013, with earlier application permitted so long as each of the other new Standards is also early applied. However, entities are permitted to incorporate any of the disclosure requirements in AASB 12 into their financial statements without early adopting AASB 12 (and thereby the other new Standards listed above).