SBRDeferred Tax (2)

How can a debit balance in Retained Earnings be shown as a negative in the Equity section? Effectively an asset, since it reduces the liabilities represented by the other components of shareholders' funds How can a debit balance be either an expense or an asset? Surely an expense is bad news and an asset is good news! But they're both debit balances in their respective accounts for the purposes of trial balance?

Thanks Mike for the clarification.