In April, the IASB issued an exposure draft of amendments to IAS 19 'Employee Benefits' proposing changes to three aspects of the standard:

• the introduction of an option for entities to recognise actuarial gains and losses in full as they arise, outside profit or loss, in a statement of recognised income and expense;
• an extension of the application of multi-employer plan accounting to entities within a consolidated group that meet certain criteria; and
• the introduction of a number of additional disclosures which largely parallel existing requirements of FRS 17 'Retirement Benefits'.

The ASB has issued the proposals as a consultation paper, with comments requested by 31 July, the same deadline as for the IASB exposure draft. The ASB fully supports the IASB's proposal to permit the immediate recognition of actuarial gains and losses, as it will allow companies that have elected to comply in full with FRS 17 to maintain similar accounting when they adopt IFRS.

The basis of applying multi-employer plan accounting to group companies causes both the ASB and UITF some concern, when viewed in combination with IFRIC's proposal D6 (see page 5). It appears that the international standards may often require entities within a group to recognise detailed allocations of the costs, returns on assets, and surplus/deficit of a group pension plan. FRS 17, by contrast, would normally allow such subsidiaries to account for their share of the group pension plan as though it were a defined contribution plan, recognising only contributions due for the period.