Tim Locke – Deputy Director CT & VAT(TL) HMRC
Matt Blake- Commissioners’ Advisory Accountant (MB) HMRC
Allana Sheil - CT & VAT(AS) HMRC
Tony Sadler –CT & VAT (TS) HMRC
Michelle Telford - Asst Commisioners’ Advisory Accnt (MT) HMRC
David Edney (DE) HMT
Chas Roy-Chowdhury (CRC) ACCA
Ian Menzies-Conacher (IMC) Barclays/CBI
Lakshmi Narain (LN) CIOT
John Cullinane (JC) CIOT
Frank Haskew (FH) ICAEW
Phillip Gillet (PG) ICI
Andrew Lennard (AL) ASB
David Potter(DP) BAT
Tim Locke began by welcoming everyone to the inaugural meeting of the newly formed group. He asked that the group’s appreciation of the work done by Richard Thomas for the IAS Steering Group be noted and minuted.
No comments
The schedule that MB had drafted – attached and see below – was discussed. It was agreed that the schedule should include both long term developments – e.g. the increasing use of fair values and shorter term e.g. the new IFRICs. Ethics, operational and criminal items would not fit within the aims of the group.
It was agreed that the schedule should be run as a live document and that contributions from the group would be very welcome. A copy of the updated schedule would be emailed to the group in advance of each publication on the Consultative Forums website.
These would be published on the Forums website. They would be reviewed by the entire Group before publication.
It was agreed that the Large Corporates Forum would be asked at their next meeting to confirm that the current membership of the group reflected their interests. ICAS and ICAI had not been part of the predecessor group but would now be asked if they would like to join. The membership was conscious of the need to balance representation with increasing size. It was agreed that the other interested bodies could make useful contributions to the work of the relevant sub groups as the particular issues arose.
The meetings would be held every quarter (beginning in January) on the last Thursday of the month at 10.00 a.m, with the exception of that for April which would be held a week earlier.
The contents of the schedule were discussed in detail. Paper versions were available at the meeting but an electronic version would be sent to the membership. MB confirmed that the intention in this first draft had been to include all standards etc where there was likely to be a change - it incorporated work being done by the ASB, the IASB, APB and also changes to the Companies Act. In short anything that might have an effect on tax was included. Members of the group suggested further inclusions – for example Basle II, the CCCTB proposal and issues concerning deferred tax. CRC asked that the EC work on “Simplification of accounting rules for small and medium-sized companies” be included. The possibility of scanning US GAAP was also mentioned.
The implications of UK GAAP/ IAS convergence, particularly on SMEs, were discussed at length and also the lessons learnt from UITF 40.
It was agreed that prioritisation was key - the front page of the schedule could show “hot topics” and these particular issues would be described in greater detail and kept under full review. Key dates, rather than just the effective dates, for each such entry would also be highlighted. A detailed explanation of each and every entry would not be required.
TS reported on the work that the IAS 39 Working Group had done since October. There had been a number of Regulations laid:
It was now the intention to let the last three amendments bed down before doing any further work in this area following review. There would, however, be more work on securitisation this year. The group discussed concerns on net asset matching.
DE commented that work of the new group would be most useful to the Treasury.
