IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts

IFRS 14 prescribes special accounting for the effects of rate regulation. Rate regulation is a legal framework for establishing the prices that a public utility or similar entity can charge to customers for regulated goods or services. 

Rate regulation can create a regulatory deferral account balance. A regulatory deferral account balance is an amount of expense or income that would not be recognised as an asset or liability in accordance with other Standards, but that qualifies to be deferred in accordance with IFRS 14, because the amount is included, or is expected to be included, by a rate regulator in establishing the price(s) that an entity can charge to customers for rate-regulated goods or services.

IFRS 14 permits a first-time adopter within its scope to continue to account for regulatory deferral account balances in its IFRS financial statements in accordance with its previous GAAP when it adopts IFRS Standards. However, IFRS 14 introduces limited changes to some previous GAAP accounting practices for regulatory deferral account balances, which are primarily related to the presentation of those balances.

In January 2014 the International Accounting Standards Board issued IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts. IFRS 14 permits a first-time adopter of IFRS Standards that is within its scope to continue to recognise and measure its regulatory deferral account balances in its first and subsequent IFRS financial statements in accordance with its previous GAAP.

Other Standards have made minor consequential amendments to IFRS 14, including IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts (issued May 2017) and Amendments to References to the Conceptual Framework in IFRS Standards (issued March 2018).