Employees have completed a $810 million transaction to purchase Appleton Papers from the French holding company Worms. The Appleton, WI company is the world's largest supplier of thermal and self-copying paper.
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has issued a discussion draft calling for using "fair value" to report the cost of stock options and other equity plans on a company's income statement.
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Representative Clay Shaw (R-FL) have introduced legislation that would make broad reforms in S corporation law. The bills include a provision that would allow distributions on allocated shares in an S corporation ESOP to be used to repay a loan.
In PLR 200135044, the IRS concluded that a company that was terminating its ESOP on acquisition by another company through an asset acquisition could distribute cash to the ESOP participants without incurring an excise tax under Code Section 4978.
In Baccanti v. Morton (MA, No 08442, 8/13/01), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that unvested options could be divided in a marital estate.
Richard Neal (D-MA) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) in the House and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) in the Senate have introduced parallel legislation that would curtail the tax on incentive stock options exercised in 2000 and subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) in 2001.
Two new studies show that employee ownership seems to have a positive impact on corporate performance in both Korea and China. Employee ownership has gained important footholds in both countries, although in very different ways.
Korea has created the framework for a new employee ownership law. Under existing law, Korea has an employee stock purchase program not unlike those in the U.S. Take-up on the plan, however, is light.
In the early 1990s, the National Labor Relations Board issued a series of rulings, most notably in the Electromation case, that created concerns that employee involvement programs could be construed under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) as illegal company-dominated unions.
Despite pressure from the International Accounting Standards Board, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in the U.S. has no current intention of revisiting the issue of whether stock options should be accounted for on a company's income statement.
The IRS has promised to issue sample amendments to allow companies to change their retirement plans to conform to the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Companies could just incorporate the language or use it as a model.
