The 'Plan General de Contabilidad' (PGC) or General Accounting Plan, issued in Spain in December 19901 implemented the European Community fourth, seventh, and eighth directives. The PGC also introduced into Spain a requirement for lessees to capitalize finance lease. This paper reports the result of research involving a questionnaire survey of Spanish financial analysts on the subject of accounting for leases by lessees. They survey enquired in.to opinions on the most useful ...
The 'Plan General de Contabilidad' (PGC) or General Accounting Plan, issued in Spain in December 19901 implemented the European Community fourth, seventh, and eighth directives. The PGC also introduced into Spain a requirement for lessees to capitalize finance lease. This paper reports the result of research involving a questionnaire survey of Spanish financial analysts on the subject of accounting for leases by lessees. They survey enquired in.to opinions on the most useful form of lease disclosure and the expected reaction of managers of Spanish business to the new rules. The survey also included a request to evaluate two economically identical companies that differed only in the method of accounting for leases.
Studies in both the USA and Singapore suggest that bank financial analysts tend to identify the gearing implications of leases, whether they are capitalized or not 1 but show some confusion over the impact of finance lease capitalization on return on capital employed.
This survey indicates that Spanish bank analysts support the move to finance lease capitalization, favour its development, and do not anticipate negative economic impact. However, at this early stage analyst appear to take a crude approach to the use of accounting information on leases.
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