D-day looms on APES 230
The Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board (APESB) is scheduled to meet tomorrow in what may signal the next step in its approach to its controversial APES 230 financial planning guidance.
The board meeting will take place against the background of strong representations having been made by the key accounting bodies — CPA Australia and the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAA) — and with the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) having reaffirmed its decision to ignore APES 230 and implement its own standard.
Whatever the results from tomorrow's APESB meeting, it will be the first formal pronouncement by the standards body since mid-January when it said it had decided to delay the APES 230 start date from the originally-targeted 1 July, 2013, to 1 July, next year.
It said this was intended to allow stakeholders additional time to implement the new standard once it had been issued.
At the same time, the APESB said it was in the final stages of drafting APES 230 and was in receipt of additional representations from the ICAA and CPA Australia.
A number of accountants working in the financial planning industry have expressed concern to Money Management that despite the representations made by CPA Australia and the ICAA, the APESB had not significantly softened its position on APES 230 and that its requirements remained well in excess of those under the Future of Financial Advice changes.
Accountant/planners have warned that the imposition of APES 230 will act as a significant detriment to their commercial models — and this might force them to exit organisations such as CPA Australia and ICAA which are tied to APESB rulings.
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