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Preparing For The Looming Changes In Lease Accounting, Dennis Chambers, James Dooley

Faculty and Research Publications

Donald Rumsfeld famously stated, “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” Rumsfeld’s statement can be applied to our state of knowledge regarding the accounting for operating leases in the future. There is general agreement (that is, a “known known”) that new standards will require lessees to report most of the assets and related liabilities associated with operating leases on the balance sheet—a significant …