FRS 102 standards in Republic of Ireland

During March 2013 the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) issued FRS 102 which is the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland, providing concise accounting and reporting requirements for unlisted entities. The standard fulfills the need for a fundamental modernisation of UK and Irish accounting standards and was formally approved on 5 March 2013. While the FRC’s new standard is applicable to a majority of the unlisted companies in the UK and Ireland, the FRS 102 taxonomy that is published would be applicable only to the UK companies. The preceding UK GAAP taxonomy saw its equivalent IE GAAP taxonomy for Ireland in the past; the current FRS 102 taxonomy however is yet to meet its Irish equivalent. Why cannot the same FRS 102 taxonomy be applied to Irish companies? Well, conceptually it can be applied. But there are certain geographic concepts that need some label adjustments to be fit for use in the Republic of Ireland (ROI). For example, “Current Corporation Tax” is represented as follows: In the UK GAAP taxonomy – UK Current Corporation Tax In the IE GAAP taxonomy – ROI Current Corporation Tax Such labels need to be adjusted throughout the FRS 102 taxonomy to be fit for Ireland. Similarly, there are other labels like “UK Term Deposits” that could be changed to “ROI Term Deposits”, etc. Is ROI lagging behind? Not really. When Ireland implemented XBRL standards, it leaped miles ahead of its neighbour UK by implementing “Full list taxonomy” tagging, while the HMRC in UK was collecting just the sub-set – namely “Minimum list taxonomy”. I guess there are benefits when you are a follower. Is the ROI cautious about the new FRS 102 taxonomy implementation and prefers to carefully watch the trend in the UK and introduce them later after lessons learned? At the moment, the ROI has still not phased out its initial iXBRL implementation (in 3 phases) that was mandated from October 2013. We will have to wait and watch. About DataTracks: DTracks Limited is a subsidiary of DataTracks Services Limited. With more than 10 years track record, DataTracks is a global leader in preparation of financial statements in XBRL and iXBRL formats for filing with regulators. DataTracks prepares more than 12,000 XBRL statements annually for filing with regulators such as SEC in the United States, HMRC in the United Kingdom, Revenue in Ireland, ACRA in Singapore and MCA in India. The views expressed are that of the author’s and DataTracks is not responsible for the contents or views expressed therein. If any part of this blog is incorrect, inappropriate or violates the IP rights of any person or organization, please alert us at ceo@datatracks.com. We will take immediate action to correct any violation. To find out more about DataTracks, visit www.datatracks.ie or send an email to enquiry@datatracks.ie.