BC1 This Basis for Conclusions summarises the International Accounting Standards Board’s considerations in reaching the conclusions in IFRS 1 First‑time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards. Individual Board members gave greater weight to some factors than to others.

BC2 SIC‑8 First‑time Application of IASs as the Primary Basis of Accounting, issued in 1998, dealt with matters that arose when an entity first adopted IASs. In 2001, the Board began a project to review SIC‑8. In July 2002, the Board published ED 1 First‑time Application of International Financial Reporting Standards, with a comment deadline of 31 October 2002. The Board received 83 comment letters on ED 1. IFRS 1 was issued by the Board in June 2003.

BC2A IFRS 1 replaced SIC‑8. The Board developed the IFRS to address concerns that:

(a) some aspects of SIC‑8’s requirement for full retrospective application caused costs that exceeded the likely benefits for users of financial statements. Moreover, although SIC‑8 did not require retrospective application when this would be impracticable, it did not explain whether a first‑time adopter should interpret impracticability as a high hurdle or a low hurdle and it did not specify any particular treatment in cases of impracticability.

(b) SIC‑8 could require a first‑time adopter to apply two different versions of a standard if a new version were introduced during the periods covered by its first financial statements prepared under IASs and the new version prohibited retrospective application.