(1) The requirement to prepare a statement of cash flows. It was found that this will increase the size of the reports created by the sample entities. This is likely to increase the cost of compilation of reports, but has limited value to users because of its historical nature. The cost is likely to exceed the benefit.
(2) The requirement to recognise and disclose deferred tax assets and liabilities. This is likely to have a significant effect on entities with fixed assets, who will be required to account for these differently under accounting and tax regulations, increasing the cost of preparation and the amount of information in the reports. There is research that has shown that reporting deferred taxes can improve the prediction of future cash flows for entities, but further research would be needed to verify whether that benefit outweighs the cost of disclosure. Also, anecdotal evidence from NZ standard setters is that most entities reporting deferred taxes are not doing this correctly, indicating the level of difficulty in accurately reporting deferred tax, increasing the cost of accounting.
(3) The requirement to amortise goodwill over 10 years. This was found to have a significant effect on the net assets of a SME if fully amortised, however the effect on total assets and total income of amortisation of 10% of goodwill was not found to be material for the sample.
(4) The option to report equity in the statement of comprehensive income. This has the potential to reduce the size of reports overall, which may be beneficial to users.
The next section gives a review of the literature on SMEs, SME financial report users, and IFRS-SMEs. In section three the research questions are developed. The methodology and data are explained in section four. Section five gives the analysis and results of the data, after which the conclusions are explained in section six.