Just by way of an analogy that might help you to understand, in the case of a corporation, if a corporation spends money to acquire a long-term asset, that asset will be capitalized on the balance sheet. It will have no impact on the profit and loss statement. But if that asset were financed with debt, there would be debt associated with it. This is not an exact example, but I'm using it because it kind of illustrates what we're talking about here. It's whether something belongs on the statement of operations versus belonging on, say, our statement of financial position.
On February 14th, 2013. See this statement in context.