WHY WAS NEW LEASING GUIDANCE NEEDED?
来源: 日期:2017/12/10 浏览:1581次
来源: GASB home
 

In June 2017, the GASB established new guidance that establishes a single approach to accounting for and reporting leases by state and local governments. The approach is based on the principle that leases are financings of the right to use an underlying asset.

GASB Statement No. 87, Leases, provides guidance for lease contracts for nonfinancial assets—including vehicles, heavy equipment, and buildings—but excludes nonexchange transactions, including donated assets, and leases of intangible assets (such as patents and software licenses). 
The Board initiated the project because the previous leasing guidance predates the GASB and doesnt take the conceptual framework into consideration—including the definitions of assets and liabilities. Moreover, the prior lease standards allow a lease to be structured in a manner that avoids reporting the economic substance of the transaction. That is, a long-term liability and related asset were not reported as a result of the lease transaction.
Through the leasing guidance, the Board is seeking to align the accounting and financial reporting of lease transactions more closely with their economic substance. The guidance is based on the underlying principle that leases are financings of the right to use an underlying asset for a period of time. It will eliminate the current distinction between operating and capital leases by treating all leases as financings. 
Board deliberations in the leases project were informed by private-sector lease requirements of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which recently reexamined their leases standards.

新闻点评:
美国政府会计准则委员会于2017628日发布了第87号声明,该声明建立起了一个全新的指导方针,为美国州政府与地方政府提供了核算与报告租赁合同的唯一方法,该声明明确规定租赁合同包括车辆、重型设备和建筑物等的租赁合同,但并不包括捐赠资产以及无形资产租赁(如专利和软件许可证)等非交换交易。
相较修改之前的租赁合同指导方法,新发布的声明更好的考虑了相关的概念问题,例如资产与负债的定义等,并且不再允许州政府在租赁合同报告中对报告交易的经济实质等问题避而不谈,例如在该声明发布之前有部分报告并未将长期负债与相关资产纳入租赁合同的相关报告中。
该指导方法将所有租赁合同视为融资行为,有望消除目前运营与资本租赁之间的区别,通过该租赁合同指导方法,州政府能更好地将租赁交易的会计财务报告与经济实体紧密地结合。
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