EFRAG broadly agrees with the IASB proposals; however, it is concerned that “amending IAS 12 Income Taxes without providing guidance on how to determine whether the payments are distributions of profits may not lead to a significant improvement in consistent application compared to the current situation” and that the short time period between issuing the amendments to IAS 28 Investments in Associates and Joint Ventures with the purposed effective date of 1 January 2018 could present issues.  EFRAG therefore proposes an effective date of 1 January 2019 with earlier application permitted with transitional provisions for entities that will not be able to apply the amendments at the same time as they apply IFRS 9 Financial Instruments. 

EFRAG is supportive of addressing proposed amendments to IAS 28 before IFRS 9 becomes effective and considers that the proposed amendments “to be a practical solution, in that they codify an acceptable interpretation of existing guidance and do not involve extensive changes to that guidance”.  EFRAG recommends guidance on the application of the proposed amendments to IAS 28. 

The press release, full comment letter and feedback statement are available on the EFRAG website.