Difference Between IFRS And GAAP

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Differences on the Income Statement
Extraordinary Items: One difference of using IFRS and GAAP on the Income Statement is the use of extraordinary items. Under the IFRS rules the use of extraordinary items are prohibited. GAAP rules however allow the use of extraordinary items. Extraordinary items are caused by a gain or loss of an event that is unusual and infrequent. Some examples of extraordinary events are natural disasters or lawsuits. Extraordinary events are not likely to happen again anytime soon. On a GAAP financial statement extraordinary items are reported net of tax and are not reduced by related tax benefits. IFRS stopped recognizing extraordinary items on their income statement in 2002. They have a separate disclosure required …show more content…

GAAP is required to list assets, liabilities and equity in decreasing order of liquidity. If a company uses IFRS then there is no specific format. Normally on IFRS the company has to present current and noncurrent assets and current and noncurrent liabilities as separate classifications. The only exemption of this is when liquidity presentation provides more relevant and reliable information.
Deferred Taxes: Another difference between IFRS and GAAP on the balance sheet is the classification of deferred taxes. For IFRS deferred taxes are always classified as noncurrent and are shown on a separate line on the balance sheet. The GAAP rules allows deferred taxes to be listed as both current and noncurrent depending in the classification of the related asset or liability. Another difference of deferred taxes is that for GAAP rules no deferred tax is recognized on the remeasurement from local currency to functional currency. For IFRS rules deferred tax is recognized on remeasurement of …show more content…

For GAAP financial statements there is more flexibility. Under GAAP rules acceptable accounting methods for determining cost of inventory are FIFO, LIFO, weighted average cost and specific identification. The downfall to more flexibility is that it is harder to compare the amount of inventory from different companies because the use of different methods can alter the amount of inventory recorded. Under IFRS principles the main accounting methods for determining cost of inventory is FIFO and weighted cost. LIFO is not allowed under IFRS principles and specific identification method is only allowed for inventory items that are not ordinarily interchangeable and for goods or services produced and segregated for specific

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