5.2 Research Questions Answered
5.21 Cash flow statements
None of the sample companies prepared a cash flow statement. The implication of this finding is that the adoption of IFRS-SME would increase the required disclosures of NZ SMEs by requiring a cash flow statement and corresponding reconciliation. With increased disclosures and statements come increased compliance costs. However, as noted in the literature, cash flow information has been found to be of value to users. As such, further research on the relative cost for preparation of the cash flow statement will need to be done to evaluate whether that additional cost is offset by an equal or greater increase in the benefit of accounts to users.
For the purposes of this study it is sufficient to conclude that our results show there will be an increase in disclosure requirements for NZ SMEs.
5.22 Deferred tax
None of the sample companies reported deferred tax assets or liabilities in 2009. However, 81% of the sample reported fixed assets in the Balance Sheet. The implication is that companies reporting fixed assets have potential to generate deferred tax assets or liabilities if they account for their fixed assets as required by IFRS-SME. This will result in assets being reported differently for NZ tax purposes. As IFRS-SME is not a NZ specific reporting standard a difference is expected between the accounting base of fixed assets and the tax base of those assets.
As the majority of sample companies held fixed assets at balance date, we can conclude that adoption of IFRS-SME would increase the disclosure requirements for most NZ SMEs to include deferred tax. This would increase the compliance costs for companies. However, as