Beyond the GAAP no.99 - April 2016

The IASB’s publication of amendments to IFRS 15 on 12 April was followed, less than a month later, by the FASB’s publication of slightly different amendments to Topic 606.

While work on the IFRS now seems complete for the present, the IASB envisaging no further changes before the Post Implementation Review, nothing is less certain on the American side. This is because the American TRG is continuing its work – without the IASB, now in an observer role – and this may lead to clarifications of the US standard. Significantly, the first meeting of the US-only TRG addressed a subject that had been raised in the world of IFRSs: measuring progress by the technical milestones method.

Apart from issues of convergence between the two standards, there is also the question of the repercussions for IFRSs users of the technical conclusions reached by the American standard-setter. The analyses conducted by the TRG, the SEC or resulting from other initiatives (sectoral groups in the AICPA, for example) on Topic 606 will clearly be sources of guidance for the application of IFRS 15. But their status in the world of IFRS remains uncertain.