The Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) has reaffirmed its intention to issue its own standard to set aside the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board (APESB) APES 230 standard, when it is finally promulgated.
The IPA's reinforcement of its position has come just days ahead of an APESB meeting which is expected to further consider the APES 230 standard, and amid lobbying efforts from CPA Australia (CPA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAA) to extract key amendments to the new standard.
The CPA and ICAA jointly announced in mid-January that the APESB had agreed to delay implementation of the standard from 1 July 2013 to 1 July 2014, but Money Management has been told neither of the key accounting bodies has been successful in extracting further serious concessions.
This is understood to have been the reason why IPA chief executive, Andrew Conway, used last week's SMSF Professionals' Association of Australia (SPAA) conference to restate his organisation's intention to promulgate its own standard.
He said the IPA continued to believe that APES 230 in its current form would create an unlevel playing field.
"We fundamentally believe in providing our members with certainty," Conway said. "Public accountants and others engaged in the provision of financial advisory services are craving certainty."
"In order to provide this certainty the IPA will, upon promulgation of APES 230, move to immediately issue a standard that sets it aside," he said. "In its place, we will issue an IPA pronouncement that ensures a level playing field and is aligned with FOFA (Future of Financial Advice legislation). This means members will be able to continue to operate under our practice model at no disadvantage."
