International leasing implies a leasing transaction in the case when the contracting parties, the lessor and the lessee, residents of various countries, and without limiting the number of countries involved in the transaction.
The mechanism of sales of equipment manufactured by the lessor is particularly popular. Such a deal is very beneficial for both parties: the lessor sells its products, and the lessee has the opportunity to receive it at a lower cost, since it can attract financing with lower interest rates than in its own country.
From which it follows that international leasing allows you to use the favorable tax regime established in a particular country, that is, it is a kind of exporting tax benefits from country to country (lessor - lessee).
Analyzing the world experience, we can say that leasing in Europe has already become an integral part of the development and stabilization of the economy of many of its countries. The volume of leasing in them is growing at a much faster pace than the increase in private investment in the production of machinery and equipment and machinery.
International leasing includes:
- direct leasing, when a legal transaction is concluded between legal entities of different countries;
- indirect leasing, when the lessee and lessor are legal entities of one country, but the lessor's capital is partially owned by foreign companies, or if the lessor is a subsidiary of a foreign TNC.
Foreign direct leasing is divided in turn into:
- export, when a leasing company provides equipment to a tenant abroad when equipment purchased from a national company;
- imported, when the lessor provides equipment to the domestic lessee purchased from a foreign company.
Leasing and its types
The types of leasing are determined depending on:
- attitude to the leased property;
- type of financing a leasing transaction;
- type of leased property;
- the composition of the participants in the leasing operation;
- the degree of return on leased property;
- market sectors;
- attitude to tax,
- depreciation and customs benefits and preferences;
- the procedure for leasing payments.
International leasing, like any other, is divided in relation to leasing property into:
- net - the lessee accepts the costs of servicing the leased property on itself and transfers the net payments to the lessor;
- “Wet” or full - the lessor assumes the costs of servicing the leased property; as a rule, they are used by the equipment manufacturers themselves; it is one of the most expensive in value;
- partial (partial set of services) when the lessor performs only certain functions of servicing the leased asset.
By type of financing, leasing is divided into:
- urgent, in case of a one-time lease of property;
- renewable (revolving) when, after the expiration of the first term, the leasing agreement is extended for the next period; the leased object at the same time after a certain period of time at the request of the lessee or depending on wear and tear can be replaced with more advanced new models.
Depending on the type of property leasing varies:
- movable property, such as machinery, equipment, ships, automobiles, airplanes, etc., both new and used;
- real estate, for example, buildings, structures.
Leasing is also divided by the degree of payback:
- with full payback (or close enough to full) if the full depreciation of the property (or close enough to full) occurs during the term of the leasing agreement and, accordingly, the lessor is paid the full cost of the property;
- with incomplete payback, when only one partial depreciation occurs during the term of a leasing agreement and, accordingly, only a part of it is paid off.
There is another form of direct leasing - leaseback, when the leased item is sold by the supplier of the leasing company, which leases the item back to its former supplier.