The FASB's November 19, 2008, meeting dealt with one of the major stumbling blocks in the convergence project with the IASB, lease accounting, and the outcome suggested that the standard-setter is still far from a clear resolution to this troublesome area.

Board members held a lengthy debate on some of the fundamentals of lease accounting, and struggled to come up with a clear set of instructions for the FASB team that was supposed to make a presentation to the IASB's November 20 meeting in London.

The FASB and the IASB have targeted a significant revision of lease accounting and convergence of their standards in this area as a major milestone in the convergence of U.S. GAAP with IFRS. The Discussion Paper being developed by FASB is one of the initial steps toward identifying what the revisions may include and is scheduled to be issued for comment in February 2009.