The NASPP Blog

I’m sure many of you are wondering how the government shutdown will impact stock plan administration. Here is what I could determine as of 12:08 AM Pacific this morning, when I posted this entry and implemented a shutdown of my household (just for the night, however–the Baksa household will be up and operating as normal in the morning, when the cats will demand food):

• The IRS is still accepting all tax payments.  I assume this refers to deposits of tax withholding, as well as individual payments.  So you should plan to collect the required tax withholding on any stock plan transactions that occur during the shutdown and deposit that withholding with the IRS just as you normally would. 
• Hopefully you won’t need any help from the IRS in making the deposits, because the IRS support services will be closed, however.
• If you happen to be in the midst of an IRS audit, you get a reprieve; IRS audit activity is suspended during the shutdown.
• The SEC has indicated that it will remain open today (see the announcement on the SEC’s home page) and EDGAR will remain operational, so get those Form 4 filings submitted on time. Ditto for any other filings planned for today (Forms S-8, 8-K, etc.).
• No word yet on how long the SEC will remain open after today.  According to the SEC’s shutdown plan, however, EDGAR will remain operational during a shutdown. Thus, plan on submitting filings as scheduled for the duration of the shutdown.  SEC review and approval of filings will be suspended during the shutdown, but this doesn’t mean that you are off the hook for submitting them on time.
• The FASB is a private institution, so I don’t think it will be impacted by the shutdown. If you urgently need to look up a paragraph in ASC 718, the Codification system should be up and running.
• The forces of capitalism will remain operational.  The securities markets are also private sector entities, so they should open as normal at 9:00 AM Eastern.  I’m guessing that today might not be the best day to sell, however.

That’s what I’ve figured out so far; we’ll provide updates as further information is available.

– Barbara