Neither the International Accounting Standards Board nor the Financial Accounting Standards Board are strangers to making improvements to financial reporting that in the development phase, meet some resistance; but once issued become accepted practice, leading many to question what all the fuss was about.
A topical example is the forthcoming lease accounting standard—the result of 10 years of joint work by the standard setters. The two boards are fully aligned on the central issue of requiring virtually all lessee obligations to be reported as balance sheet liabilities.
