Stock Options and the Levin-McCain Double Standard
by Alan Reynolds on 04/02/2002
2 Pages
From Congress Daily (4/5):
". . . a sharp critique of a bill offered by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., concerning corporate obligations to report stock options on tax returns. The bill is designed to make sure a company's earnings reports match tax deductions it claims to the IRS. But a paper written by analyst Alan Reynolds contends the bill would violate the principle that income should not be taxed twice. He explained that employee taxes are based on the actual earnings from stock options. Employers, on the other hand, would be forced to base deductions on the estimated value of stock options, years in advance. He challenged what he described as Levin's assertion that the costs of stock options never actually show up on a company's earnings report under current law."
If you did not arrive at this web page from within the IPI website, click on the link below to go to IPI:
Note: PDF denotes that the document is in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. This is the preferred format for printing and viewing IPI publications; however, you'll need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader program. We suggest obtaining the program and installing it as a browser plug-in at http://www.adobe.com.