IPSAS 42, Social Benefits

IPSAS 42, Social Benefits, provides guidance on accounting for social benefits expenditure. It defines social benefits as cash transfers paid to specific individuals and/or households to mitigate the effect of social risk. Specific examples include state retirement benefits, disability benefits, income support and unemployment benefits. The new standard requires an entity to recognize an expense and a liability for the next social benefit payment.

IPSAS 42 seeks to improve the relevance, faithful representativeness and comparability of the information that a reporting entity provides in its financial statements about social benefits. To accomplish this, IPSAS 42 establishes principles and requirements for:

• Recognizing expenses and liabilities for social benefits;
• Measuring expenses and liabilities for social benefits;
• Presenting information about social benefits in the financial statements; and
• Determining what information to disclose to enable users of the financial statements to evaluate the nature and financial effects of the social benefits provided by the reporting entity.