Accounting for leases. Analysis of the IAS 17 and its impact

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 2,7, University of applied sciences, Munich, language: English, abstract: Leasing is nowadays an established part of the economy as an investment alternative. These figures are promising for the German market, but also comparable with the US. There the share of the investment market accounted for by leasing remained at over 30 percent for years. Due to the financial crisis this rate decreased, but its rising again. In spite of the crisis leasing expanded its top position as an alternative to the classic bank loans over the past 50 years. Recognized as key engine of innovations, it even assures sufficient financial cushion for investments and contributes to growth dynamics in economies. But what exactly is leasing? There is no generally applicable definition of leases, but in its simplest form, it can be described as provision of access to finance. Leasing object can be anything as classical as machines or real estates, but also intangible assets as software or trademark rights. Leases are an important instrument of accounting policies for entities. In many sectors appropriate equipment is not bought, but leased. Therefore and because of the globalization of capital markets an increasing convergence of accounting standards worldwide is accelerated. The progress toward attaining a global financial reporting framework is focused, and many significant steps have been taken. One of them is the Exposure Draft ED/2013/6. The ambition of it was to guarantee transparency of financial statements as source of information for their readers of financial statements who can be managers, investors, financial auditors but also a big range of stakeholders. Reasons for revising was that the lease accounting model has continually met with criticism. Objective of the following term paper is to provide an overview of the current lease accounting standard.