Employee Ownership Blog

In Private Letter Ruling 200827008, the IRS ruled that floor price agreements for S corporation ESOPs do not count as a second class of stock, which would disqualify the S election.

On July 29, the IRS and the Treasury Department released proposed regulations relating to options granted under an IRC Section 423 employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) and under IRC Sections 422 (ISOs) and 421 (taxation of stock transferred under IRC Sections 422 and 423).

In FASB Staff Position (No.

The NCEO is partnering with the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) on a project to encourage employee ownership in inner cities.

Ownership Thinking, a consulting and training firm in Colorado dedicated to creating cultures of ownership thinkers, is having its second annual conference on September 18 and 19 in the Denver area. The NCEO is a cosponsor.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story on July 7 featuring NCEO member and ESOP company Skyline Construction. The San Francisco-based company lets its 15 top managers decide how much of their pay will be fixed versus incentive-based. Most have chosen incentive pay.

ESOPs are more common in the banking industry than any other, and that may not be such a good thing right now, at least for those banks heavily into subprime mortgages. Sovereign Bank is being sued by a group of employees over the company's ESOP and company stock in the 401(k) plan.

The Certified Equity Professional Institute at Santa Clara University has released its 2008 research project focusing on restricted stock and restricted stock units as part of its ongoing GPS | Guidance, Procedures, Systems project.

The final deadline for taking the NCEO's new survey on equity compensation practices in closely held companies is Friday, July 18.

The State of Florida has agreed to buy U.S. Sugar, a company partially owned by an ESOP, for $1.75 billion. Details of the deal will be worked out over the next several months.

In FTB Notice 2008-04, the State of California has offered a resolution for sellers in certain abusive ESOP transactions.

Preliminary results from the 2007 "Trends in Equity Compensation" survey by the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals and Deloitte show that employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs) have become somewhat more conservative in response to accounting rule changes that became fully effective i