Employee Ownership Blog
Corey Rosen

Corey Rosen

March 08, 2023

Tennessee Employee Ownership Bill Passes Key Committees

The “Employee Ownership, Empowerment, and Expansion Act” (SB0085 and HB0154) has unanimously passed authorizing committees in both houses of the Tennessee General Assembly. The bill would provide a feasibility assessment and implementation tax credit for ESOPs, worker coops, and employee ownership trusts (EOTs) of up to 50% of the first $100,000 for ESOPs and $25,000 for worker coops and EOTs. It also would make employee-owned companies eligible for the same contracting preferences as minority-owned, woman-owned, service-disabled, veteran-owned, and disabled-owned businesses. It also directs the state to create an outreach program with existing resources to educate minority business owners about the law. Funds for the bill now have been included in the upcoming budget from the governor, and fiscal committees in both houses must approve it.

Corey Rosen

March 01, 2023

Employee Ownership Efforts Move Forward in NJ, MO

New Jersey Governor Proposes Funding for Conversion to Employee Ownership

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy’s proposed 2024 budget includes $6 million in funding for conversions to ESOPs, worker cooperatives, or employee ownership trusts. The proposal came out of a Wealth Disparity Task Force created in 2021. Modeled after a law in Colorado, the funding program would provide partial support for feasibility and other transaction costs. The proposal will have to receive authorization from the New Jersey legislature. Details on the funding are not yet available but should be when the governor delivers his budget address on March 7.

Corey Rosen

January 11, 2023

Promising New Employee Ownership Bills at State Level

State legislation on employee ownership is gaining momentum, with bills passed in Colorado during 2021 and in Massachusetts and California during 2022. Two new bills have attracted important support in Washington and Tennessee, and bills will be introduced soon in Texas, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. The bills in Washington and Tennessee were introduced in the past week, as described below.

Corey Rosen

January 03, 2023

Major Wins for Employee Ownership in New Spending Bill

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, an omnibus spending bill with many parts that was signed into law on December 29, contains major wins for employee ownership as part of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. (The original SECURE [Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement] Act of 2019 was signed into law in December 2019 and modified various retirement plan rules, such as changing the age for required minimum distributions from 70½ to 72.) Section references here are to the SECURE 2.0 Act, not the appropriations bill as a whole, which contains many laws (e.g., there are multiple “sec. 114” instances, and one of them is in the SECURE 2.0 Act, amending Section 1042).

Corey Rosen

December 22, 2022

A Christmas Carol, the ESOP Version

Lots of us love Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. The tale of Ebenezer Scrooge’s dream-tormented epiphany about what really matters in life has resonated deeply with people of all ages ever since it was published.

Corey Rosen

December 15, 2022

Rosen-Case Ownership Book Wins Book Prize

Ownership: Reinventing Capitalism, Companies, and Who Owns What won the 2023 William Foote Whyte and Kathleen King Whyte Book Prize for the best book of the year on shared capitalism. The award is issued by the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.

Corey Rosen

November 18, 2022

Massachusetts Passes Employee Ownership Center Bill

Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts has signed a wide-ranging economic development legislative package that includes An Act to Enable the Massachusetts Center for Employee Ownership (S.261 / H.511), which will institutionalize the Massachusetts Center for Employee Ownership (MassCEO). The Office will be housed in the Massachusetts Office of Business Development. Much like the recently passed California Employee Ownership Act, the office will focus on outreach to business owners and serve as a resource hub for service providers and information. It will be led by a full-time director and will be able to make grants to local organizations to carry out its mission. The legislation also created a formal advisory board comprised of representatives from a number of stakeholder groups, including governor-appointed representatives from Massachusetts-based ESOP companies and worker cooperatives.

Corey Rosen

October 31, 2022

SBA Says Main Street Employee Ownership Act Has Not Produced Many ESOP Loans

The 2018 Main Street Employee Ownership Act was intended to spur lending from the Small Business Administration for ESOP transactions. While the law seemed very clear that ESOPs should be eligible for the SBA’s 7(a) lending program (a program that allows borrowers to get loans through SBA approved lenders rather than having to navigate the more cumbersome process of going to the SBA directly), SBA guidance on the Act excluded ESOPs from the program, as well as adding other requirements for equity in the deal and a separate valuation, that have made the law cumbersome at best.

Corey Rosen

October 28, 2022

2023 Plan Limits Announced

In Notice 2022-55 (October 21, 2022), the IRS announced the largest increase in annual limits for retirement plans in many years. The new limits applicable to ESOP companies include:

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