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Last year, the Presidential Panel on Federal Tax Reform proposed sweeping changes in retirement plan tax benefits. While the proposal did not specifically mention ESOPs, it appeared to eliminate all existing defined contribution plans and replace them with an Employer Retirement Savings Account.

A House-Senate conference committee is likely to be held soon to try to iron out differences between versions of pension plan reforms passed by both houses.

Less than two weeks after the government of South Africa announced it would reduce the incentives for broad-based employee ownership, it reversed its decision.

The NCEO's founder, Corey Rosen, published a detailed review of the evidence on ESOPs as a retirement plan in the June 22, 2015, issue of Tax Notes. The article was in response to a prior article arguing that ESOPs needed major reform to be part of the retirement system.

A bill in Rhode Island would require that employees be notified about their right to make a bid to purchase the business in the event of a mass layoff or closure. The Local Ownership Opportunity Act (H.7799 and S. 2871) would require a poll of employees to measure interest in a worker buyout.

With the signature of Gov. Gina Raimondo (D), Rhode Island adopted legislation designed to promote worker cooperatives in the state.

Attentive readers may recall that startup ridesharing company Juno made a big splash when it promised to be a different kind of ridesharing company, one that treated its drivers well, including sharing equity with them. This year, Juno was bought out for $200 million by a private equity group.

Loren Rodgers, the NCEO's executive director: "I feel lucky because a big part of my job is talking with people about their dreams for their companies.

Robert Fulton, the founder of ESOP owned Web Industries, died on November 18 at the age of 86. We at the NCEO wanted to include this in our update because Bob and the company he created have been such seminal figures in employee ownership.