This May Heip You
AS 13, Accounting for investments allows acquisition charges such as brokerage, fees and duties to be capitalised as cost of the investment. There is, however, an Expert Advisory Committee (EAC) Opinion which requires that cost related to due diligence incurred to acquire a business should be expensed immediately in the period in which it is incurred. In the absence of any further specific guidance, current practice in IGAAP is to capitalise directly attributable acquisition charges and to expense all other charges. An element of divergence in accounting practice is introduced here due to varied interpretations of which costs are directly attributable’ and which are not.
Though earlier IFRS allowed costs directly related to acquisitions to be included as part of the purchase consideration and, therefore, within the calculation of goodwill, the revised IFRS 3 (revised 2008) has been amended and requires such costs (e.g., investment banker fee, legal and due diligence fee) be charged to the income statement as incurred. However, cost relating to the issue of debt or equity securities need to be recognised in accordance with IAS 32, Financial Instruments: Presentation and IAS 39, Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement.