By Cydney Posner

The article in the WSJ today reports on a potential proposal by Senator Carl Levin to align corporate compensation expense recorded for employee stock options with amounts deducted for tax purposes. The article cites one estimate that a book/tax alignment could result in $100 billion in revenue to the Treasury during four years. The change is also intended to address the problem of excessive executive pay. According to the article, changes to the tax code would affect nonqualified options but not affect the special tax benefits applicable to incentive stock options.

The Senate is holding hearings on the matter today.

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