Lease Accounting Project

The FASB and IASB issued the second Exposure Draft (“ED”) of the proposed new leasing rules on May 16, 2013 with a deadline for comments of Sept. 13, 2013. The ED is an improvement over the 2010 ED in that it is closer to current GAAP in areas such as the definition of the lease term and lease payments. The major impacts of the ED versus current GAAP to lessees will be: capitalizing all but short-term operating leases as an asset and liability, debt covenants may have to be revised if the new capitalized operating lease liabilities are considered debt, most equipment leases will have front-loaded P&L lease costs, and sale leasebacks with purchase options will not be accounted for as sales and leasebacks. The major impacts of the ED versus current GAAP for lessors will be: a portion of upfront sales-type lease profits will be deferred, leveraged lease accounting will be eliminated, tax credits and grants will not be reported as revenue, and most residual guarantees/insurance will not be considered financial assets. The plan is to issue a new lease accounting rule in 2014 after review of comment letters to the ED and re-deliberating identified issues. The effective date when all lessors and lessees implement the rules is likely to be in 2017, although lessees and lessors will have to show comparative results for 2015 and 2016 in their 2017 financial statements. The work to transition existing leases to the new rules will be a big undertaking, more for so lessees, but also problematic for lessors.