NEW YORK CITY-While the fate of lease accounting standards has not yet been determined, the benefits and drawbacks of the revised proposal set forth by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and International Accounting Standards Board were debated by panelists at ALM Real Estate Media Group’s 2012 RealShare Net Lease conference on Tuesday afternoon.

After both FASB and IASB were unable to agree on a proposed amortization schedule during their Feb 28-29^th meeting, the standards board announced several alternatives to the original plan, which initially involved the elimination of the differentiation of operating and capital leases on a company’s balance sheet. As it currently standards, the boards are considering an underlying asset approach, which, according to FASB, is considering the consequences that the changes would bring both lessors and lessees.

“This is the preferred method of the IASB, and it’s considered by some as a purer method,” said Serena Wolfe, a partner at Ernst & Young’s New York office. “Nobody is sure where it is going to go. It’s going to take a while for the boards to flesh these ideas out more to provide a little bit more color as to how to actually come up with these concepts, but I think it’s an indication that the boards are listening to you, and they are working to create a solution or create a way to mediate a decision.”