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Author Bio

Bill Bosco

Principal of Leasing 101

Bill Bosco is the principal of Leasing 101, a lease consulting company. Bill has over 37 years of experience in the leasing industry. His areas of expertise are accounting, tax, financial analysis, structuring, pricing and training. Bosco has been on the ELFA accounting committee since 1988 and was chairman for 10 years. He is a frequent author and speaker on leasing topics. He has been selected to the FASB/IASB Lease Project working group. He can be reached at wbleasing101@aol.com, www.leasing-101.com or 914-522-3233.

Posts by Bill Bosco

Leasing as a Bank Product: Enhancing Profits and Customer Relationships

The lease product meshes well with commercial banks as it can provide financing for assets existing customers use in their business and point of sale financing for products these customers sell. To finance the equipment customers use in their business,... read more

Lease Accounting Rules Add to Bank Capital Woes: Topic 842 May Cause Credit Crunch in 2019

Based on a study I completed, I predict the worldwide availability of bank lending will shrink by $2.6 trillion dollars in 2019 when banks transition to the new lease accounting rules (Topic 842 in the U.S. and IFRS 16 for... read more

Structuring Leases Under Topic 842: Two Vital Issues to Consider

Topic 842 brings two new considerations to keep in mind when structuring leases: 1) the impact on financial measures and ratios and 2) the changed rules regarding sale-leaseback accounting. While some elements of lessee accounting will change, many will stay... read more

Basel & EFRAG Decide on New Lease Rules: Two Bad Calls for the Industry

In March, EFRAG (the European Financial Advisory Group that advises the European Union on accounting issues) issued a report to the IASB endorsing approval of the new lease accounting rules (IFRS 16). In April, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision,... read more

Preparing for ASC 842: How to Help Lessee Customers

The new lease accounting rules, ASC 842, are a major change for lessee customers. The rules are complex and will require lessees to do things they have never done before. Activity has lulled anticipating the transition occurring in 2019 for... read more

New Accounting Rules: Implications for Vendor, Dealer and Captive Segments

The new rules have some implications for the vendor, dealer and captive finance segments of the leasing industry. This article will identify the issues and implications and provide commentary on strategies to deal with them. Some issues affect all the... read more

Interim Rents Under ASU 842: Lessees & Lessors Take Note

Interim rent accounting in practice has been inconsistent and, in some cases erroneous, under current GAAP for both lessees and lessors. That will change in a big way as lessee CFOs and auditors increase their focus on lessee accounting, since... read more

FASB Meeting on Lease Implementation Issues: Results Are a Bad Omen

The FASB had its first meeting on Leases Topic 842 implementation issues at the end of November. The FASB staff has been receiving questions from many parties and they teed up four issues for the board to discuss. Three of... read more

Regulatory Advocacy Needed: Keep Capitalized Operating Leases “Capital Free”

Attention lessors — especially banks or other regulated financial institutions. Implementation of the new lease accounting rules may bring advocacy issues regarding the regulatory capital treatment of operating leases. This is a warning! Companies in the industry may not only... read more

The New Rules: Differences Between FASB & IASB

The lease accounting change project began with the objective of converging on a worldwide set of rules. When the FASB and IASB took different views on whether all leases were the same for lessee accounting, the idea of convergence was... read more

More Than Just Numbers: Leasing Can Be a Funny Business

When I started in the leasing business in 1974 I didn’t even know how to spell ITC, lease payments were determined by looking them up in a book of financial tables and we used SOMD (sum of the months’ digits)... read more

Twenty-Five years and Counting: We Have Lived in Interesting Times

The leasing industry is driven by frequently changing forces. The key factors influencing leasing are accounting rules, tax law, funding availability, interest rates, commercial law, regulations, technology and economic cycles. The industry has always been nimble, adapting to each new... read more

The New Rules Get It Right: ITC Confirmed as Lease Revenue

Hooray! The new leasing rules, Topic 842, allow investment tax credit (ITC) to be amortized as revenue in a direct finance lease. You just have to weave your way through the words, connect some dots and interpret a bit to... read more

The Days of Excel Are Done: Lessees Prepare for the New Accounting Rules

The FASB designed the new lease accounting rules to be as neutral as possible to companies’ financial results. It maintained the current risks and rewards framework for classification, separately reporting the operating lease asset and liability, and kept the profit... read more

FAS 13 Becomes Topic 842: Differences Are Minimal in Lease Accounting

The leases project will soon be signed by the FASB and will be called ASC Topic 842. Although the FASB originally set out to change lessor GAAP, the board decided to retain current lessor GAAP, for the most part, as... read more