WASHINGTON, DC—A key concern for industry firms is the looming changes to how they account for leases. The International Accounting Standards Board and the US Financial Standards Board have worked—or rather, struggled—to converge their two respective lease accounting standards, and so far the proposals have been less than pleasing to the industry.

Now, a new proposal has emerged that could be satisfactory to real estate and other business users, Bill Bosco, a consultant for the Washington, DC-based Equipment Leasing and Finance Association and principal of Leasing 101, tells Real Estate Forum. There are still some hurdles, namely that IASB is reportedly not yet on board, he says. "But this is the proposal we think most of the stakeholders would agree is an acceptable method," he states. "Certainly real estate owners, concerned about what their lease costs will look like, will accept this one as the best of all proposed methods." He estimates that real estate leases comprise 75% to 80% of the dollar volume of operating leases.

This new proposal is called whole contract. It accrues the average rent as the reported lease cost—much the same as current GAAP—and adjusts the lease liability on each balance sheet date to be the present value of the remaining lease payments. "It does not change the P&L or the cash flow presentation for what used to be the operating lease," Bosco says.