The words, uttered three years ago at a Canadian event by the chair of the International Accounting Standards Board, would seem a simple enough wish. But Tweedie is still flying the globe, for the most part, on planes that aren't found on carriers' financial statements. As he pointed out in 2008, most are financed through operating leases, which don't have to be recorded on the balance sheet. As a result, airlines haven't had to include them on their balance sheets -- so far.

Now, though, that appears likely to change. The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the IASB are jointly working to update lease accounting standards. According to the , the agencies will issue final accounting standards for leases by the middle of this year; this follows the release of an exposure draft and a comment period last year. Under the proposed standards, companies' balance sheets will have to reflect their lease assets and obligations, says Josh Leonard, a partner with Deloitte's lease advisory practice. "They will have a right-of-use asset and an obligation to pay rent."

The primary driver behind the change is a desire for greater transparency. "Today, there are a lot of non-cancelable lease assets that are not on (companies') financial statements," says Terry Warfield, professor of accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While companies include information on lease obligations in their financial statements' footnotes, the obligation to pay rent over the terms of a lease is not really shown, Leonard notes. Similarly, most landlords' balances sheets lack information on the income they can expect to receive from their leases

"I agree with the move to put the assets on the balance sheet," as that provides a more accurate picture of the company's obligations, says John (Jack) Hinnendael, group controller with ITW Ark-Les, a supplier of engineered user interface solutions. He notes, thought that ARk-Les leases very little, so the change would have minimal impact on him.