[2] According to IASB chairman Hans Hoogervorst, “These new accounting requirements bring lease accounting into the 21st century, ending the guesswork involved when calculating a company’s often-substantial lease obligation.
It will also improve comparability between companies that lease and those that borrow to buy.”[3] Disclosures made by public companies about the impact of IFRS 16 on their financial statements are a point of focus of European financial regulatory authorities.
[4] IFRS 16 substantially carries forward the lessor accounting requirements in IAS 17.
Instead, the cumulative effects of applying IFRS 16 are recognised as an adjustment to the opening balance of equity at the application date.
[7] In particular, lessees no longer classify their leases between operating and finance under IFRS 16, but will continue to do so under US GAAP.