K3 vs IFRS : Påverkan på de finansiella rapporterna vid kapitalisering av leasing

Sammanfattning: Leasing has for many years been an attractive financing alternative, especially for companies with a high debt-to-equity ratio. It is estimated that every third purchase is financed through leasing. Leasing has despite its popularity been exposed to criticism. What lead to the discussions is that a large part of the leasing was handled outside of the balance sheet. The discussions have finally resulted in IASB issuing a new leasing standard, IFRS 16, which replaced the previous standard IAS 17. With IAS 17, the lessee could classify his leases as operational or financial, with IFRS 16 all leases should be considered financial. IFRS 16 came into force on January 1, 2019, which meant that all companies applying IFRS had to capitalize all major leases during the financial years that began in 2019. In Sweden, it is still possible for lessees to classify their leases as operational if the lessee applies the Swedish K3 Rules. The advantages of operating leasing have been considered to be that the lessee can take a greater financial risk without being noticed, by keeping debts outside the company's balance sheet. Companies that apply IFRS will have financial reports that differ from the financial reports presented by companies that apply the K3 regulations. IFRS 16 is in its application very dependent on the discount rate used to calculate the present value of the leasing agreements. The purpose of the study is to examine how the layout of the financial reports differs in its handling of leasing depending on whether a company chooses to apply IFRS or whether the company chooses to apply K3 in its accounting. The purpose is also to examine how different interest rates affect the management of leasing in accordance with IFRS and to investigate whether there are any advantages and disadvantages for stakeholders when comparing and analyzing different companies that can be derived depending on which of the regulations are applied. We have investigated this by constructing typical cases where we applied the various regulations. The empirical data that, which has been generated from our typical cases, has been analyzed and interpreted from a stakeholder perspective with the help of various selected financial key ratios and the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information. The results of the study show that the majority of the financial key ratios, due to changes in the financial reports, are affected when a company applies IFRS instead of K3. The financial key ratios in some respects represent a company that is less financially strong when IFRS is applied. On the other hand, a company that applies IFRS exhibits better and more efficient operational operations in the cash flow analysis. Our conclusion is, despite the fact that certain financial key ratios have been negatively affected, that IFRS should be the regulatory framework that is preferred by stakeholders with regard to the management of leasing agreements. The reason is the more faithful representation that the company shows by applying IFRS. This study is hereafter written in Swedish.