Course details
Explore how accountants handle leases and the corresponding assets and liabilities, and learn about the impact of the 2019 Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) lease rules. Instructors Jim and Earl Kay Stice give an overview of leasing versus buying, and discuss different ways to finance assets before giving a quick history of lease accounting and the FASB financial standards. They then cover how the 2019 FASB rules affect the way organizations account for leases, and address transition difficulties.
Instructors
Jim SticeLinkedIn Learning Instructor at LinkedInJim Stice is a professor of accounting at BYU.
James D. Stice, PhD, is the Distinguished Teaching Professor of Accounting in the School of Accountancy at Brigham Young University (BYU). He teaches business and accounting to university students and to business professionals around the world. Professor Stice has been at BYU since 1988. He has co-authored three accounting textbooks and published numerous professional and academic articles. In addition, Professor Stice has been involved in executive education for Ernst & Young, Bank of America Corporation, International Business Machines Corporation, RSM, and AngloGold Limited and has taught at INSEAD (in both France and Singapore) and CEIBS (in China). He has been recognized for teaching excellence by his department, his college, and the university. Professor Stice currently serves on the audit committee of Deseret Management Corporation and served on the board of directors of a publicly traded company until it was taken private.
Professor Jim Stice received a PhD from the University of Washington as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees from BYU, all in accounting.
The importance of lease accounting
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– From 1976 until 2018, the accounting for leases was among the most deceptive accounting practices in existence. – Deceptive, yes, deceptive. In 2016 alone, lease accounting standards allowed publicly traded companies around the world to avoid reporting three trillion dollars in obligations under noncancelable lease contracts. – Wait, wait, did you mean three billion? – Three trillion dollars. Historically, the flexibility of the accounting standards relating to leases has resulted in a phenomenon called off-balance sheet financing. Now, the phrase itself sounds pretty unsavory, off-balance sheet financing, I mean, the very purpose of the balance sheet is to report the sources of a company’s financing, right? – That is right. So in 2019, better rules were implemented, and the changes to the financial statements have been dramatic. – Hi, I’m Jim Stice, I’m a Professor of Accounting at Brigham Young University. This…