FASB/IASB joint meeting

Earlier this week, the FASB and IASB held a joint meeting in London. Among the many topics discussed was leases. According to the Summary of Board Decisions, the following important decisions were made:

* The boards reaffirmed the right-of-use approach for lessees. (IOW, the pleas of many discussion paper comments to keep operating lease accounting have been rejected.)
* The boards have decided to accept the idea of "in substance purchases" as being different from leases; they will be excluded from the scope of lease accounting. Criteria will be developed to identify which contracts should be so treated.
* The boards agreed to use a performance obligation approach for lessor accounting--the asset is not removed from the books, but a liability is set up to reflect the obligation to permit use of the asset, balancing the receivable for the rental stream.
* Lessors will no longer be permitted to recognize a profit at the beginning of the lease; everything will be recognized over the lease term.
* A lease will now need to be reflected on the balance sheet (presumably for both lessees and lessors) as soon as the contract is signed, rather than the current practice of waiting until the asset is delivered. However, until delivery it is to be recognized "net" only, which means that in most cases there will be nothing to report (assets and liabilities are equal), except in case of an impairment. Disclosures (in footnotes, not the primary financials) would be required to detail the assets and liabilities, at least when there is a significant gap in time between signing and delivery and/or the amounts are significant.

The boards will discuss further issues in November, including
* initial and subsequent measurement of the asset and obligation
* treatment of leases with options
* contingent rentals and guaranteed residuals