Lease Accounting Frustrations to Get Airing Before Rulemakers

Richard Forrestel Jr.'s construction company built an $85 million highway, including two bridges over a gorge in upstate New York in 2010.

His company, Cold Spring Construction Co., hired a subcontractor to erect the bridges’ massive steel beams. Under new lease accounting rules that private companies will have to follow in 2022, the crane the subcontractor rented could be listed as a liability on Cold Spring’s balance sheet. Forrestel calls this “silly.”

“I didn’t insure it, I didn’t rent it, I didn’t pay any lease payments, nothing,’” Forrestel, the Akron, N.Y., company’s treasurer, said of the rented crane. “I looked at ...