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Commission Regulation (EC) No 1725/2003 of 29 September 2003 adopting certain international accounting standards in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1606/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council

Content

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Objective

The objective of this Standard is to prescribe the accounting and disclosure for employee benefits. The Standard requires an enterprise to recognise:

(a) a liability when an employee has provided service in exchange for employee benefits to be paid in the future; and

(b) an expense when the enterprise consumes the economic benefit arising from service provided by an employee in exchange for employee benefits.

Scope

1. This Standard should be applied by an employer in accounting for all employee benefits, except those to which IFRS 2 Share-based Payment applies.

2. This Standard does not deal with reporting by employee benefit plans (see IAS 26, accounting and reporting by retirement benefit plans).

3. The employee benefits to which this Standard applies include those provided:

(a) under formal plans or other formal agreements between an enterprise and individual employees, groups of employees or their representatives;

(b) under legislative requirements, or through industry arrangements, whereby enterprises are required to contribute to national, State, industry or other multi-employer plans; or

(c) by those informal practices that give rise to a constructive obligation. Informal practices give rise to a constructive obligation where the enterprise has no realistic alternative but to pay employee benefits. An example of a constructive obligation is where a change in the enterprise's informal practices would cause unacceptable damage to its relationship with employees.

4. Employee benefits include:

(a) short-term employee benefits, such as wages, salaries and social security contributions, paid annual leave and paid sick leave, profit-sharing and bonuses (if payable within 12 months of the end of the period) and non-monetary benefits (such as medical care, housing, cars and free or subsidised goods or services) for current employees;

(b) post-employment benefits such as pensions, other retirement benefits, post-employment life insurance and post-employment medical care;

(c) other long-term employee benefits, including long-service leave or sabbatical leave, jubilee or other long-service benefits, long-term disability benefits and, if they are not payable wholly within 12 months after the end of the period, profit-sharing, bonuses and deferred compensation;

and

(d) termination benefits.

Because each category identified in (a)–(d) above has different characteristics, this Standard establishes separate requirements for each category.

5. Employee benefits include benefits provided to either employees or their dependants and may be settled by payments (or the provision of goods or services) made either directly to the employees, to their spouses, children or other dependants or to others, such as insurance companies.

6. An employee may provide services to an enterprise on a full-time, part-time, permanent, casual or temporary basis. For the purpose of this Standard, employees include directors and other management personnel.

Definitions

7. The following terms are used in this Standard with the meanings specified:

Employee benefits are all forms of consideration given by an enterprise in exchange for service rendered by employees.

Short-term employee benefits are employee benefits (other than termination benefits ) which fall due wholly within 12 months after the end of the period in which the employees render the related service.

Post-employment benefits are employee benefits (other than termination benefits ) which are payable after the completion of employment.

Post-employment benefit plans are formal or informal arrangements under which an enterprise provides post-employment benefits for one or more employees.

Defined contribution plans are post-employment benefit plans under which an enterprise pays fixed contributions into a separate entity (a fund) and will have no legal or constructive obligation to pay further contributions if the fund does not hold sufficient assets to pay all employee benefits relating to employee service in the current and prior periods.

Defined benefit plans are post-employment benefit plans other than defined contribution plans.

Multi-employer plans are defined contribution plans (other than State plans) or defined benefit plans (other than State plans) that:

(a) pool the assets contributed by various enterprises that are not under common control; and

(b) use those assets to provide benefits to employees of more than one enterprise, on the basis that contribution and benefit levels are determined without regard to the identity of the enterprise that employs the employees concerned.

Other long-term employee benefits are employee benefits (other than post-employment benefits, termination benefits) which do not fall due wholly within 12 months after the end of the period in which the employees render the related service.

Termination benefits are employee benefits payable as a result of either:

(a) an enterprise's decision to terminate an employee's employment before the normal retirement date; or

(b) an employee's decision to accept voluntary redundancy in exchange for those benefits.

Vested employee benefits are employee benefits that are not conditional on future employment.

The present value of a defined benefit obligation is the present value, without deducting any plan assets, of expected future payments required to settle the obligation resulting from employee service in the current and prior periods.

Current service cost is the increase in the present value of the defined benefit obligation resulting from employee service in the current period.

Interest cost is the increase during a period in the present value of a defined benefit obligation which arises because the benefits are one period closer to settlement.

Plan assets comprise:

(a) assets held by a long-term employee benefit fund; and

(b) qualifying insurance policies.

Assets held by a long-term employee benefit fund are assets (other than non-transferable financial instruments issued by the reporting enterprise) that:

(a) are held by an entity (a fund) that is legally separate from the reporting enterprise and exists solely to pay or fund employee benefits; and

(b) are available to be used only to pay or fund employee benefits, are not available to the reporting enterprise's own creditors (even in bankruptcy), and cannot be returned to the reporting enterprise, unless either:

(i) the remaining assets of the fund are sufficient to meet all the related employee benefit obligations of the plan or the reporting enterprise; or

(ii) the assets are returned to the reporting enterprise to reimburse it for employee benefits already paid.

A qualifying insurance policy is an insurance policy* issued by an insurer that is not a related party (as defined in IAS 24, related party disclosures) of the reporting enterprise, if the proceeds of the policy:

(a) can be used only to pay or fund employee benefits under a defined benefit plan; and

(b) are not available to the reporting enterprise's own creditors (even in bankruptcy) and cannot be paid to the reporting enterprise, unless either:

(i) the proceeds represent surplus assets that are not needed for the policy to meet all the related employee benefit obligations; or

(ii) the proceeds are returned to the reporting enterprise to reimburse it for employee benefits already paid.

Fair value is the amount for which an asset could be exchanged or a liability settled between knowledgeable, willing parties in an arm's length transaction.

The return on plan assets is interest, dividends and other revenue derived from the plan assets, together with realised and unrealised gains or losses on the plan assets, less any costs of administering the plan and less any tax payable by the plan itself.

Actuarial gains and losses comprise:

(a) experience adjustments (the effects of differences between the previous actuarial assumptions and what has actually occurred); and

(b) the effects of changes in actuarial assumptions.

Past service cost is the increase in the present value of the defined benefit obligation for employee service in prior periods, resulting in the current period from the introduction of, or changes to, post-employment benefits or other long-term employee benefits. Past service cost may be either positive (where benefits are introduced or improved) or negative (where existing benefits are reduced).

(*) A qualifying insurance policy is not necessarily an insurance contract, as defined in IFRS 4 Insurance Contracts.

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