Skip to main content
Version date: 26 February 2020 - onwards

Recoverable amount based on the higher of net selling price and value in use (paras. BCZ23-BCZ27)

 [In IFRS 5 Non‑current Assets Held for Sale and Discontinued Operations, issued by the IASB in 2004, the term ‘net selling price’ was replaced in IAS 36 by ‘fair value less costs to sell’.]

BCZ23 The requirement that recoverable amount should be the higher of net selling price and value in use stems from the decision that measurement of the recoverable amount of an asset should reflect the likely behaviour of a rational management. Furthermore, no preference should be given to the market’s expectation of the recoverable amount of an asset (basis for net selling price) over a reasonable estimate performed by the individual enterprise which owns the asset (basis for value in use) or vice versa (see paragraphs BCZ17-BCZ20 and BCZ22). It is uncertain whether the assumptions of the market or the enterprise are more likely to be true. Currently, perfect markets do not exist for many of the assets within the scope of IAS 36 and it is unlikely that predictions of the future will be entirely accurate, regardless of who makes them.

BCZ24 IASC acknowledged that an enterprise would use judgement in determining whether an impairment loss needed to be recognised. For this reason, IAS 36 included some safeguards to limit the risk that an enterprise may make an over‑optimistic (pessimistic) estimate of recoverable amount:

(a) IAS 36 requires a formal estimate of recoverable amount whenever there is an indication that:

(i) an asset may be impaired; or