User:Shaun.Steenkamp/intangibles

Intangible assets have been argued to be one possible contributor to the disparity between company value as per their accounting records, and company value as per their market capitalisation. Considering this argument, it is important to understand what an intangible asset truly is in the eyes of an accountant. A number of attempts have been made to define intangible assets:

• Prior to 2005 the Australian Accounting Standards Board issued the Statement of Accounting Concepts number 4 (SAC 4). This statement did not provide a formal definition of an intangible asset but did provide that tangibility was not an essential characteristic of an asset.

• International Accounting Standards Board standard 38 (IAS 38) defines an intangible asset as: "an identifiable non-monetary asset without physical substance." This definition is in addition to the standard definition of an asset which requires a past event that has given rise to a resource that the entity controls and from which future economic benefits are expected to flow. Thus, the extra requirement for an intangible asset under IAS 38 is identifiability. This criterion requires that an intangible asset is separable from the entity or that it arises from a contractual or legal right.

• The Financial Accounting Standards Board Accounting Standard Codification 350 (ASC 350) defines an intangible asset as an asset, other than a financial asset, that lacks physical substance.

The lack of physical substance would therefore seem to be a defining characteristic of an intangible asset. Both the IASB and FASB definitions specifically preclude monetary assets in their definition of an intangible asset. This is necessary in order to avoid the classification of items such as accounts receivable, derivatives and cash in the bank as an intangible asset. IAS 38 contains examples of intangible assets, including: computer software, copyright and patents.