Abgrenzung des Konsolidierungskreises nach IFRS 10 (Consolidation: Identifying Subsidiaries Under IFRS 10)

Abstract

Identifying subsidiaries has always been a key issue in preparing consolidated financial statements and is still one of the most difficult accounting issues standard setters have to cope with. Moreover, the current financial crisis and recent accounting scandals have impressively demonstrated that improper or violated consolidation rules can have (together with other factors) serious implications not only for individual enterprises and their stakeholders but for the whole economy. The most challenging tasks in establishing adequate consolidation rules are assessing circumstances involving special purpose entities, the consideration of principal agent relationships, and the judgment of de-facto control. To overcome these problems, in May 2011 the IASB published IFRS 10 which comes up with a modified consolidation model replacing the corresponding provisions in IAS 27 and SIC 12. However, the new consolidation criteria are difficult to understand and even more difficult to apply in practice. First of all, IFRS 10 is not only more comprehensive and more complex than IAS 27 and SIC 12 but also very poorly structured. Furthermore, the new rules contain many undefined terms and unspecified provisions which have to be interpreted for practical application. Without a deeper understanding of the new rules and its underlying concepts one can neither properly apply the new consolidation criteria nor is it possible to judge them from a conceptual point of view.Therefore, as a basis for further normative research on consolidation as well as for a proper application of IFRS 10 this paper first identifies the different consolidation concepts used in IFRS 10 and develops a clear and user-friendly scheme to identify the reporting entities’ subsidiaries. On this basis, the individual test steps are considered in more detail to identify application problems and to provide additional guidance not given in IFRS 10.