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Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Sen. Levin Seeks to Roll Back Corporate Tax Giveaways
 Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has introduced a bill to roll back tax deductions companies claim for executive stock options. The bill would eliminate the favored tax treatment of corporate stock option deductions, which currently allows companies to deduct the value of stock options for executive at a later date when they are exercised rather than when they are offered. Companies would still be able to deduct the value in the year the options are offered.
The Levin bill would also make executive stock option compensation deductions subject to the same $1 million cap on corporate deductions that applies to other types of compensation paid to the top executives of publicly held companies. When introducing the bill, Levin stated:
Our bill would end the double standard of companies deducting more from their taxes than the stock option expenses shown on their books. Eliminating unwarranted and excess stock option deductions could mean as much as $5 to $10 billion annually in additional corporate tax revenues that we can't afford to lose.
The bill has been refered to the Senate Finance committee. Levin's office has prepared a summary of the bill. You can also read the bill itself and Levin's comments made when introducing the bill in the Senate.
Posted by Adam Hughes
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