The eight-page paper, "Lease Accounting: Separating Myth from Reality; Are the lease accounting rules as bad as they say?," is authored by William Bosco, a member of the ELA Financial Accounting Committee.It is available for free download at http://www.elaonline.com/accounting/PDFs/LseAcctg0506.pdf

Since operating leases are off balance sheet transactions, they have come under further scrutiny in the wake of the Enron collapse. Enron used off-balance sheet accounting transactions to hide its poor financial performance.

"Lease accounting is completely transparent, and attempts to link accounting for operating leases with incorrect or disreputable business practices are completely mistaken," said Michael Fleming, ELA president. "The operating lease accounting rules in FAS 13 are clear and specific and have been followed by the vast majority of lessees since their issuance almost 30 years ago."