Just seems that I can’t get away from the topic of IFRS this week. This morning I connected to a webcast sponsored by PwC regarding the pending conversion to IFRS and the tax considerations of this move. More specifically, the discussion was focused on the comparions of FAS 109 and IAS 12 regarding the treatment of income taxes and the evaluation of liabilities. I have never enjoyed the tax side of my profession but there’s no doubt you need to be up to speed on the potential liabilities this area creates.

Athough I tabled the question remotely on the webcast, which was not answered, I was trying to determine the number of participants that were on the presentation so as to put some of the statistics noted below into perspective. That figure was not released in the presentation. Below are some of the stats from the questions polled during the webcast.

- Only 49.7% of the companies who will be participating in an IFRS conversion have appointed a leader to coordinate their conversion efforts.
- Only 46.6% of the companies that have an IFRS Committee have representation from their Tax department. This was a rather suprising figure.
- When asked whether it would be cumbersome to run analysis for evaluating uncertain tax liabilities for multiple scenarios, 65.8% said it would be “very cumbersome”, while 31.5% said it would be “moderately cumbersome”. Only 2.7% said it would “not be cumbersome”.
- With the above statistic in mind, it was surprising that 77.5% did not intend to provide any type of comment letter to the IASB on expected changes in the Income Tax Accounting Exposure draft that was to be release soon.
- Lastly, 74.1% were concerned with the manner in which Stock Options would be accounted for under the new IFRS accounting treatments.

While certainly not an exciting area, any potential changes in tax liability are an area that I would like to keep completely informed of. For this webcast, PwC included hosts from both sides of the Atlantic to tackle this topic, which did make for an informative call. As with all players in the current IFRS game, this continues to be a developing area and all are watching closely.

Thanks for reading. . . .