Fulfilling a promise they made this spring, accounting rulemakers in the United States and abroad have opened a new, long-term project to rewrite lease accounting rules.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board met separately last week, each deciding to adopt a joint project, with a goal of issuing a preliminary discussion paper in 2008. The boards plan to form a joint working group that will lay a foundation for deliberations beginning in 2007. Given the enormity of the undertaking and the boards’ existing workloads, rule changes might not actually occur until 2009.
