Countdown Starts to Private Company Lease Accounting Overhaul

After a failed attempt to secure another deadline extension, 2022 is—for real—the year private companies have to tally up all the real estate, equipment, and vehicles they rent and report them on their balance sheets for the first time ever.

By all accounts, figuring out how to comply with the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new lease accounting standard will be a major undertaking. Luckily, private companies don’t have to comply as soon as the calendar turns to January. Private businesses have until their first annual report of 2022, which for most calendar-year companies will be Dec. 31, 2022.

They will ...