A History of Lease Accounting with a Comparative Study of the Current Financial Reporting Standards for Leases under U.S. GAAP and IFRS

The SEC has implied, through their endorsement of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the convergence project between the FASB and the IASB, that a move from U.S. GAAP to IFRS will provide financial statement users with preferable information regarding company profitability and risk. This paper tests that implication as it pertains to leases. Through a comprehensive history of lease accounting and example financial statements, this paper determines which accounting standards provide users with preferable information on companies that use leases extensively