N EWS A Industry Input Makes a Difference on the Lease Accounting Project T ELFA’S LEASE AND FINANCE ACCOUNTANTS CONFERENCE in September, attendees asked guest speaker Tom Lins-meier, a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, to reconsider the Board’s decision to drop a key provi-sion from current GAAP. Namely, they asked the Board to restore the “carve out” from the useful life and PV tests for leases where the term begins in the last 25% of the leased asset’s useful life. Dropping this item, which is of particular value to rail lessors, would add complexity for both lessees and lessors and misrepresent the substance of those leases. Aft er a coalition of rail lessors and ELFA reached out to the Board on this issue with an email, several phone calls and a comment letter, the FASB agreed with the request, making this their last decision before proceeding with draft ing the new lease accounting standard. Th e FASB made this decision as follows, as reported on their website: SAVE THE DATE : The 2016 Lease and Finance Accountants Conference will be held Sept. 12-14 in Baltimore. Also, members will not want to miss a Feb. 9 webinar and March 2 one-day workshop devoted to the new leasing standard. For details, see www.elfaonline.org/Issues/Accounting/. Th e Board’s current decisions would classify a lease as a fi nance lease (for lessees) or a sales-type lease (for lessors) if the term of the lease is for the major part of the remaining economic life of the un-derlying asset (the lease term criterion). Th e Board decided to provide an exception to the lease clas-sifi cation test whereby entities will not consider the lease term criterion when performing the lease classifi cation test for leases that commence “at or near the end” of the underlying asset’s economic life. Th e Board also decided that the fi nal leases standard should include implementation guidance that one reasonable approach to determining the applicability of this exception would be to conclude that a lease that commences in the fi nal 25 percent of an asset’s economic life is “at or near the end” of the underlying asset’s economic life. Remaining Economic Life Lease Classi cation Criterion It is important to note that the issue got traction as a result of a member asking the question at the Lease and Finance Account-ants Conference. It shows the value of attending this conference and making your voice heard! Credit and Collections in the Mile-High City Calling all credit and collections professionals! Don’t miss the 2016 Credit and Collections Management Conference & Exhibition, June 5–7 in Denver. The conference planning committee, chaired by Michael Mount, SVP , Credit Department Head at U.S. Bank Equipment Finance, met at ELFA headquarters in November to develop an impressive lineup of sessions and speakers for this year’s event. 4 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016 EQUIPMENT LEASING & FINANCE MAGAZINE