Perhaps you have been wondering what has become of the much-threatened and ballyhooed changes in lease accounting.  Dating back to 2009, and as part of their efforts to converge US and International GAAP while “playing nice” together, the FASB and the IASB added a project to revamp lease accounting onto their collective agenda.  If you are old enough to remember Jimmy Carter’s upset victory in the 1976 presidential election, then you should also be familiar with old reliable FAS 13 which was released in the same year.  FAS 13 has served as the lease accounting standard for more than 35 years and has given us the concept of both capital and operating leases as well as the fairly precise set of rules that distinguish between the two.  In a world of unintended consequences, FAS 13 also created a cottage industry of carefully constructing lease transactions to permit them to meet the form of operating leases under FAS 13’s rules-based approach.  As a result, the balance sheets of the world remained free of many of these long-term and very real obligations. It was IASB Chair, Sir David Tweedie who famously remarked that he would, just once, like to ride in a commercial airliner that was actually recorded on the sponsoring airline’s balance sheet.  With this sentiment expressed, the effort to put FAS 13 out to pasture was in motion.