Consensio

I am trying to clarify the terminology of Intangible Assets (IA). It turns out, that intangibles mean something else to everybody, depending on who you ask.
According to NSW’s Treasury Department’s policy definition

“There is currently no Australian Accounting Standard that comprehensively deals with intangible assets. However there are general requirements contained in a number of standards that are applied to intangible assets.“

And then the policy goes on to explain:

“The main impact of this standard on ACT Government agencies is in relation to software, as this is the only material intangible asset that is held by the ACT.“

I’m asking you- how is something “material intangible”? According to a Princeton definition it can be one or the other…If you take away the physical code of this asset, it won’t function. Operating systems in this definition are described as tangible (they are make of code, too) but application software isn’t. But for classifying reasons (and tax purposes?), we can look at it any way we want, I suppose. Further down in this defining policy:

“Internally generated brands, mastheads, publishing titles, customer lists and items similar in substance shall not be recognised as intangible assets. This is because expenditure on these internally generated intangibles cannot be distinguished from the cost of developing the business as a whole. Therefore, such items are not recognised as intangible assets”.

Brands are NOT defined as intangibles. Wow! Al these scholars who define IA’s as …must clearly not be thinking of the same thing as the policy makers in NSW!