#leases
Lease accounting under ASC 842 and IFRS 16, including embedded leases, right-of-use assets, and lease liability measurement
National retail vacancy sits under 6% while office vacancy runs near 19-20% in 2026, so retail tenants should negotiate a CPI rent-escalation cap of 3-5% while office tenants can push for $75-$150 per square foot in tenant improvement allowances and multiple months of free rent.
Solar ground leases on farmland pay $500-$1,200 per acre annually nationally once construction begins, but landowners who skip the decommissioning bond, rollback-tax reimbursement, and escalator clause often lose more than they gain over a 20-to-35-year term.
US billboard ground leases pay landowners 15–20% of ad revenue or flat rent — tax treatment and escalators over 10–20 years.
Flight schools should book prepaid block-time packages as deferred revenue, distinguish owned aircraft from leaseback and dry/wet-leased aircraft for depreciation purposes, classify CFIs correctly against IRS behavioral-control tests, and track revenue-per-aircraft-hour to know if the business is actually profitable.
Percentage rent adds a variable charge — typically 5-10% of gross sales above a lease's breakpoint — on top of base rent in most shopping-center, mall, and restaurant leases, and landlords can audit tenant sales records to enforce it.
With 100% bonus depreciation permanently restored for equipment placed in service after January 19, 2025 and a $2,560,000 Section 179 cap for 2026, the lease-vs-buy decision now hinges on total cost of ownership, cash flow timing, and how long you'll actually keep the equipment — not just which option gets the bigger write-off.
A working framework for shed builders, dealer lots, and portable building manufacturers to classify rent-to-own contracts under ASC 842, set repossession reserves, apply Section 179 to mover equipment, and handle multi-state sales tax under Wayfair.
A practical accounting guide for party and event equipment rental operators — how to split ASC 842 lease income from ASC 606 service revenue, capitalize and depreciate tents and chairs under Section 179 and 100% bonus depreciation, track per-asset utilization against 65–75% peak benchmarks, handle booking retainers and refundable damage deposits, and avoid ABC-test misclassification risk for delivery and setup crews.
How salon-suite operators and booth-renting stylists should separate ASC 842 lease revenue from ASC 606 service revenue, capitalize the build-out under QIP and Section 179, navigate the DOL 2024 worker-classification rule and state ABC tests, and track the few KPIs — suite occupancy, RevPRSF, average tenure — that actually predict location survival.
How coworking operators separate hot desk, dedicated desk, and private office revenue under ASC 606, hold refundable deposits as liabilities, allocate common-area square footage to compute NOI per foot, capitalize build-out as Qualified Improvement Property with 100% bonus depreciation in 2026, and report the occupancy, RevPOD, churn, and MRR concentration metrics that lenders and acquirers actually price on.
ASC 842 treats many service contracts — IT hosting, 3PL warehousing, power purchase agreements, equipment-as-a-service — as leases when the contract names an identified asset and the customer directs its use. This guide covers the two-test framework, the four contract categories where embedded leases hide, the practical-expedient trade-offs, and a procurement-to-accounting screening workflow.
