Paper Title
Lease Accounting: Specifics
Abstract
IFRS 16: “Lease”, which replaced the applicable lease standard (IAS 17), brought about certain changes in
accounting. According to the applicable standards, the lessee is obliged to apply a uniform financial model to the accounting
operations.
In January 2016, the IFRS Board adopted IFRS 16 “Lease”, which replaced IAS 17 of the same name applied since 1982.
The new standard is the result of the joint work of the two major accounting systems: the International Accounting Standards
Board and the US General Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP). It is also a logical sequence of IAS 17 approaches.
The lease standard was developed because, not infrequently, the companies used the lease contract to finance acquisition of
long-term assets without posting their controlled assets or contractual obligations in the balance, which resulted in
inappropriate submission of the financial reports. Consequently, the financial report users obtained inaccurate information
and had to assess the off-balance lease liabilities.
Therefore, the IFRS Board decided on the new approaches to accounting. In view of deficiencies of the applicable standards,
the aim of the new standard (IFRS 16 “Lease”) is supply the information users with the appropriate and fair lease-related
information.
Within the frameworks of IAS 17, all the lease contracts were divided into two types: the financial lease, which actually has
to do with the acquisition of the long-term assets and the operational lease, which does not have anything to do with it. In
case of the financial lease, in its statement of financial position, the lessee was to recognize its controlled asset and lease
liability, while in the operation lease the lessee equally assigned the rental to the costs throughout the lease term.
Keywords - Identification of lease, investment property lease, fixed taxes, interest rate, unwarranted residual value.