Small and medium sized companies have very important position in the EU economy, mainly in the
area of employment. Their activities on the internal market are limited by a great deal of obstacles. The
most important obstacles can be considered diff erent national fi nancial reporting and tax systems.
IASB published an International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) designed for use by small and
medium-sized entities (SMEs). The IFRS for SME is expressly designed to meet the fi nancial reporting
needs of entities that (a) do not have public accountability and (b) publish general purpose fi nancial
statements for external users. This standard could be a suitable instrument for the SME accounting
harmonization.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the problems connected with the harmonization of accounting legislation
used by SMEs in EU countries especially in the Czech Republic.
In the frame of methodology the empirical research was used. The author has distributed questionnaires
to the enterprises in the Czech Republic, selected according to their size and the fi eld of activity.
Comment letters of 210 respondents from 26 EU Member States were used for evaluation possibilities
of the IFRS for implementation to national legislation.
Based on the results of empirical research some problems could arise with the IFRS for SME application.
Based on the questionnaires, respondents are highly interested in the costs and gains of IFRS for
SME application. The gains should exceed the costs of IFRS for SME application.
SME, harmonization, IFRS for SMEs, EU consultation