3 The directors of Panel, a public limited company, are reviewing the procedures for the calculation of the deferred tax
provision for their company. They are quite surprised at the impact on the provision caused by changes in accounting
standards such as IFRS1 ‘First time adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards’ and IFRS2 ‘Share-based
Payment’. Panel is adopting International Financial Reporting Standards for the first time as at 31 October 2005 and
the directors are unsure how the deferred tax provision will be calculated in its financial statements ended on that
date including the opening provision at 1 November 2003.
Required:
(a) (i) Explain how changes in accounting standards are likely to have an impact on the provision for deferred
taxation under IAS12 ‘Income Taxes’. (5 marks)
(a) (i) IAS12 ‘Income Taxes’ adopts a balance sheet approach to accounting for deferred taxation. The IAS adopts a full
provision approach to accounting for deferred taxation. It is assumed that the recovery of all assets and the settlement
of all liabilities have tax consequences and that these consequences can be estimated reliably and are unavoidable.
IFRS recognition criteria are generally different from those embodied in tax law, and thus ‘temporary’ differences will
arise which represent the difference between the carrying amount of an asset and liability and its basis for taxation
purposes (tax base). The principle is that a company will settle its liabilities and recover its assets over time and at that
point the tax consequences will crystallise.
Thus a change in an accounting standard will often affect the carrying value of an asset or liability which in turn will
affect the amount of the temporary difference between the carrying value and the tax base. This in turn will affect the
amount of the deferred taxation provision which is the tax rate multiplied by the amount of the temporary differences(assuming a net liability for deferred tax.)