The IASB recently finalized amendments to IFRS 2 relating to the accounting treatment of share withholding and cash-settled awards.
FASB in the Lead
The IASB issued the exposure draft of the amendments in November 2014—so long ago that I was beginning to think that maybe they had forgotten about the project and would never get around to it. By way of reference, the FASB issued the exposure draft of their amendments to ASC 718 seven months later and still managed to issue their final amendments three months ahead of the IASB.
Share Withholding
The most exciting amendment permits shares to be used to cover tax withholding without triggering liability treatment. Under the original IFRS 2, share withholding triggered liability treatment for the shares that were applied to the tax payment—no exceptions. This resulted in a bifurcated accounting treatment for the award: the portion that would be settled in cash to cover the tax payment was subject to liability treatment while the rest of the award was subject to equity treatment. It was also an area where IFRS 2 diverged from ASC 718, which has always included an exception to liability treatment for share withholding.
Unfortunately, the two standards still don’t converge. The IASB’s amendment only permits share withholding up to the statutorily required payment, and, as my readers know, the FASB recently expanded the exception in ASC 718 to apply to share withholding up to the maximum individual tax rate in the applicable jurisdiction. It’s ironic: the primary reason the FASB expanded the exception in ASC 718 was to facilitate share withholding for non-US employees but, unfortunately, for companies that have to report under IFRS, the international standard will still pose an obstacle to doing this.
Cash-Settled Awards
The IASB also amended IFRS 2 to clarify the vesting conditions that apply to cash-settled awards should be accounted for in the same manner as for stock-settled awards. The upshot is that for non-market conditions, the company records expense based on an estimated forfeiture rate and trues up to outcome. Market conditions (and non-vesting conditions) are incorporated into the fair value of the award. I’m surprised that anyone thought anything different. I guess that’s the problem with a “principles-based standard.” If you don’t spell everything out with a nice clear set of rules, someone is bound to interpret the principle in a way you don’t want them to.
The amendments also clarify how to account for modifications that change the classification of awards from cash-settled to stock-settled. I’m not going to bother to explain this because 1) it’s a total snore (as compared to the rest of the action-packed amendments) and 2) it happens so rarely that hardly anyone cares about it. And, as with any modification of stock awards, it’s crazy complicated—if this is something your company is doing, you should really be talking to your accounting advisors and not relying on an English major to tell you how to account for the modification.
Thanks to Ken Stoler of PwC for bringing the amendments to my attention and for providing a handy summary of them.
We are pleased to bring back our popular “Meet the Speaker” series, featuring interviews with speakers at the 24th Annual NASPP Conference. These interviews are a great way to get to know our many distinguished speakers and find out a little more about their sessions in advance of the Conference.
For our first “Meet the Speaker” interview, we feature Deborah Walker of Cherry Bekaert, who will lead the session “The IRS and Treasury Speak.” Here is what Deborah had to say:
NASPP: Why is your topic particularly timely right now?
Deborah: Our presentation features IRS and Treasury speakers involved in regulatory and legislative initiatives involving equity compensation. This is a chance to hear the government’s enforcement focus and new guidance that could affect your equity plans and programs. In prior years, the session has been interactive, giving you a chance to question the government officials about an issue that concerns you and discuss their response, often giving the government ideas for ways to approach various issues that are less obtrusive than what the government may think about. We look forward to another interactive session this year in Houston.
NASPP:What is one best practice companies should implement?
Deborah: The IRS is implementing new computer audit procedures, enabling them to determine that withholding taxes are unpaid in a matter of days rather than in a matter of months. To avoid unnecessary intrusions in the form of “soft letters” from the IRS, you should review your payroll tax withholding and deposits for equity compensation, focusing particularly on the timeliness of deposits for the vesting of restricted stock and the exercise of non-qualified stock options. This should be done on a regular basis. Correction of failure to deposit amounts should be done as soon as possible.
NASPP:What is something companies should know about penalty assessments from the IRS?
Deborah: As the IRS computer systems are becoming more modern, there is an increase in penalty assessments. If you are assessed an IRS penalty, the IRS has a program allowing for the waiver of penalties when a penalty notice is a first time assessment. The program is only available to those who have had no penalties in the prior three years. There is no limit on the amount that can be waived. If this program is not available to someone when a penalty has been assessed, the taxpayer or their representative should always ask for waiver of the penalty for reasonable cause.
NASPP:What is something people don’t know about you?
Deborah: I had a speaking part as a terrified nun in the Three Stooges movie produced in 2012 by 20th Century Fox and directed by the Farrelly brothers.
The 24th Annual NASPP Conference will be held from October 24-27 in Houston. This year’s program features close to 100 sessions on today’s most timely topics in stock and executive compensation; check out the full agenda and register today!
I’m fascinated by how the field of stock compensation has changed over the years, so I love that the NASPP has been conducting surveys on stock compensation since 1996. For today’s blog entry, I have created an infographic comparing the data in our most recent survey on ESPPs to surveys the NASPP has conducted since before FAS 123(R) was adopted.
The 2016 ESPP survey is a joint project of the NASPP, the NCEO, and the CEP Institute. It was conducted in January and received over 200 responses. I compare the results to editions of the Domestic Stock Plan Administration Survey that were conducted in 2014, 2011, 2007, and 2004. All editions of this survey were co-sponsored by the NASPP and Deloitte Consulting, except the 2004 edition, which was co-sponsored by KPMG.
My infographic is interactive! Select a year to see how the data changes from one survey to another. Hover over the charts with your mouse to view the data points. (If you have trouble seeing the infographic, click here to view it on a separate page.)
Today’s CompensationStandards.com blog points readers to a handy chart of “Problematic Pay Practices – as Identified by ISS” published by ExecutiveLoyalty.org. Since there are several that stem from equity compensation practices, I’ll recap some of them.
Avoid These Practices or Risk a Negative ISS Vote
While there were several compensation practices identified, only some of them apply to equity compensation. They include:
Repricing or replacing of underwater stock options/stock appreciation rights without prior shareholder approval (including cash buyouts, option exchanges, and certain voluntary surrender of underwater options where shares surrendered may subsequently be re-granted).
Stock plans with a liberal CIC definition (e.g. low % or occurrence before CIC closing) coupled with single trigger vesting upon the CIC “are likely to receive a negative recommendation” (FAQ #63).
Equity plans or arrangements that include a liberal CIC definition (such as a very low buyout threshold or a CIC occurring upon shareholder approval of a transaction, rather than its consummation), coupled with a provision for automatic full vesting upon a CIC, are likely to receive a negative recommendation. [FAQ 59]
Excessive reimbursement of income taxes on executive perquisites or other payments (e.g., related to personal use of corporate aircraft, executive life insurance, bonus, restricted stock vesting, secular trusts, etc; see also excise tax gross-ups above.
I don’t think any of these come as a particularly big surprise – but it’s helpful to see the most likely hot button practices wrapped up into a handy chart for reference. As ExecutiveLoyalty.org points out, “on at least an annual basis, those who make executive compensation decisions for public companies should “score” their practices against ISS and other policy guidelines.”
I recently had to update my EDGAR passphrase. I thought this would be a relatively simple process. I’m a smart person and I have a proven success rate in navigating government websites—I know how to use the DMV website to make an appointment, I’ve requested a certified copy of my birth certificate online, I can find a public company’s stock plan on EDGAR—how hard could it be to update my EDGAR password? Turns out, way harder than I expected.
This is a long blog entry, but it’s not my fault. I blame the SEC (and maybe Microsoft).
How I Got Into this Mess
I got my EDGAR access codes over a decade ago, back when the SEC first rolled out the system for filing Section 16 forms online. It was so long ago, it was before the SEC required a notarized Form ID or a passphrase. I did not want to go through the hassle of submitting a notarized form to the SEC, so I had a system in place to make sure I didn’t forget to update my EDGAR password, which consisted of a reminder in my Outlook calendar set for about a month before my EDGAR password expired. Once a year, the reminder would pop up and—unlike how I respond to my alarm clock—I would not ignore it or hit snooze. I would immediately update my EDGAR password and set the reminder for the next year.
This system worked fantastically for over a decade, including through a change in employers. And then I got a new laptop with Outlook 13 on it. Outlook 13 had some sort of “known issue” that caused emails to disappear from my inbox. The only way to fix it was to remove Outlook 13 and go back to Outlook 10. In the process, my entire calendar was lost. Completely gone.
After massive hyperventilating and gnashing of the teeth, I was able to recreate most of it, but there were some appointments I forgot—including the reminder about my EDGAR password.
Fixing an Expired EDGAR Password
To update an expired EDGAR password, you have to generate a new set of EDGAR codes. This requires a passphrase. I had no idea what my passphrase was because the passphrase system wasn’t in place when I originally got my EDGAR codes, hence I didn’t have it noted in any of the various places where I have made note of my EDGAR codes (this was regrettable on my part). Here’s what I needed to do:
1. Generate a new passphrase. This required me to submit an Update Passphrase Confirmation form, which has to be notarized. I thought getting the notarization would be hard, and it was, mainly because I kept forgetting to bring the form with me when I met with my notary friend who would notarize the form for free.
This part was also very confusing because the only way to get the Update Passphrase Confirmation form is to fill out an online request for a new passphrase. But the SEC won’t issue a new passphrase until the notarized form is submitted, so I would have to come back and complete this very same online form again once I had my notarization. Essentially, you complete one new passphrase request that the SEC completely ignores. Then, once you have your notarized form, you complete a second request that the SEC will act on if you can manage to submit your notarized form properly (see steps 2 to 5).
Finally, to add to my frustration, it took several tries to come up with a passphrase that would meet the SEC’s crazy specifications so that I could print the form that I had to have notarized. (Note to the SEC: a password that is so complicated to remember and so hard to update that you write it down in multiple places it is a total security fail.)
2. Months later, after I finally got the form notarized (access to EDGAR isn’t really a pressing concern for me on a day-to-day basis), I had to go back to EDGAR to submit the form.
3. Of course I first tried this after 7:00 PM Pacific (I am in California) and EDGAR is shut down for the night at that time. Despite how ridiculous this is for an online system, it shouldn’t have been a surprise; as soon as I got the error message, I remembered that EDGAR shuts down for the night.
4. The next day I thought I was all set. I had my form and it was between 3:00 AM and 7:00 PM Pacific. Thankfully, the EDGAR system let me use the same passphrase I had come up with after several tries in step 1, so I didn’t have think of another one. But I still made every error in the book before I could submit the form—my file name was too long, then it had spaces, then it had capital letters, then my reason for needing to update my passphrase was too long, then it included profanity (just kidding, I did not swear at the SEC, at least not in writing).
5. After several tries, I finally managed to submit my update passphrase request form without getting an immediate error. I took this to be a good sign, even though there was no way I could tell that the submission had succeeded, since I got the same “submission completed” screen that I got when the submission failed.
6. Then I waited. After two business days, I received an email that my request to change my passphrase had been accepted. This was a major hurdle overcome, but I still had to go in and generate my new EDGAR codes.
7. Guess what time it was when I tried generate my new EDGAR codes: yep, after 7:00 PM Pacific (this is one of my most productive time periods). So I set an appointment in my calendar to remind me to generate my codes before 7:00 PM the next day (no worries about me trying to generate them before 3:00 AM).
8. The next day, my reminder pops up and I go to generate my new EDGAR codes. After all this, I am positively holding my breath that I wrote down my passphrase correctly because I sure as heck didn’t want to have to start this whole process again. Luckily, I am at least competent in this one thing, because the passphrase worked and I finally have my new EDGAR codes. Phew!
Lesson Learned
You might think the lesson I learned is to not let my EDGAR password expire, but that isn’t it all. The lesson I learned is …
Don’t forget your EDGAR passphrase!
If I had just remembered my passphrase, this whole blog entry could have been avoided. Maybe I should rent a safe deposit box or get one of those fireproof safes just to store my EDGAR passphrase.
Wondering why EDGAR is such a hot mess? Check out this nifty podcast that explains the problem with government websites: “DMV Nation.”
Everyone else is talking about Brexit (the vote in the UK to leave the EU), why should the NASPP Blog be left out of the conversation? For today’s entry, I discuss what Brexit might mean for your stock plans.
Don’t Panic—Yet
The good news is that the vote is advisory, so it isn’t as if the UK has immediately exited the EU. They are still part of the EU for the short-term. The UK government and the EU have to come to an agreement about how the exit plan will work and various experts have indicated that this could take two years or more.
How Will Stock Plans Be Impacted?
By now, we are all too familiar with the EU Directives that impact stock compensation. While the Directives are complicated enough, in and of themselves, if the UK leaves the EU, things could get a lot more complicated. The UK will have it’s own rules that may or may not be the same as the rules in the Directives. A recent alert by Baker & McKenzie summaries a number of areas in which stock compensation offered to employees in the UK could be affected.
Securities Laws: The EU Prospectus Directive (including both the filing requirement and exemptions) will no longer apply in the UK. This could turn out to be better or worse than the way things are now: the UK could require companies offering stock compensation to file a prospectus (probably worse), could provide an exemption for stock plans (probably the same as now for many companies, depending on the requirements for exemption), or could recognize prospectuses filed in the EU (or even in countries outside of the EU, such as the United States) (the same or better).
Data Privacy: The EU Data Privacy Directive would also no longer apply in the UK. The EU has proposed new rules for this directive, so right now, we don’t know what the final rules will be for any countries in the EU, much less the UK. But once the UK has left the EU, they can determine their own rules; maybe these rules would be similar to the rules that the EU adopts, maybe not. One bit of good news is that Baker & McKenzie notes that “It would be surprising … if the UK would not consider consent to be a valid ground to collect, process and transfer personal data.” Since that is how most companies comply with the EU Data Privacy Directive for their stock plans, little may change here.
Discrimination: There are a number of EU Directives that prohibit discrimination against specified groups of employees. Those Directives would also no longer apply in the UK, but the UK would be free to adopt its own rules on discrimination. Baker & McKenzie notes that they do not expect to see substantial changes here.
Social Insurance, Too
An alert by EY notes that Brexit may also impact the social insurance obligations of mobile employees, their employers’ compliance obligations, and the benefits mobile employees are entitled to. Currently, the EU governs how social insurance applies when employees move between countries in the EU. Unless the UK comes to an agreement with the EU that the EU rules still apply to employees moving between the UK and other EU countries, individual agreements would have to be put in place between the EU and all the EU countries. Some of these agreements exist, but they haven’t been updated since the EU established its rules. Many have expired or don’t address how mobility works in today’s world. This could get ugly.
What About Companies that Don’t Have Stock Plan Participants in the UK?
For those companies, there shouldn’t be any direct impact to their stock plans (other than the impact of stock price volatility resulting from the economic uncertainty caused by Brexit). But, if you are a US-based company with a multi-national stock plan, chances are that you have stock plan participants in the UK. In the NASPP/PwC Global Equity Incentives Survey, the UK is second only to the US in terms of countries where respondents have employees and offer stock compensation.
More to Come
I’m sure there will be more implications to think about as the UK’s exit looms closer. At this year’s NASPP Conference, our perennially popular session, “Around the World in 60 Minutes: Key International Updates” will most certainly have a lot to say about Brexit, as will the session “Making Sense of Europe.” Be sure to attend one or both of these sessions so you are up-to-date on how your stock plan participants in the UK will be affected.
Last Chance to Take the NASPP Member Survey
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NASPP To Do List
Here’s your NASPP To Do List for the week:
A few weeks ago I shared a couple of infographics I’d seen on ESPP Plans and asked for readers to share more of their visually inspired communications. My thought was that a stock plan picture is indeed worth a thousand words (think of all those plan terms boiled down to a few pictures that a participant can digest.) I’m happy to report that I got answers, and more sample graphics. In today’s follow on blog, you can view them, too.
Restricted Stock at a Glance
Emily Cervino of Fidelity graciously shared a stock plan graphic on Restricted Stock Awards. As soon as I saw it, I realized that the third parties who support issuer stock plans have much to offer when it comes to communications. This takes a lot of the communication burden off the stock plan administrator and directs participants to the provider prepared content for learning.
The Marriage of Video and Infographics
Bruce Brumberg of myStockOptions.com pointed out to me that infographics don’t have to exist on their own. myStockOptions.com has an entire suite of free videos that incorporate infographics. They are publicly available, so feel free to take a look! I’ve included the link to one on Stock Options: NQSO Taxation.
Charts Count Too!
Last but not least, Terry Adamson of Aon Hewitt suggested that good charts can be effective visuals, too. His team has a suite of charts that allow participants to compare their performance awards to the performance of peer companies. Here’s a sample:
What’s Your Inspiration?
Are those creative juices flowing yet?
Inc. magazine recently published some eye popping statistics about visual content. While the statistics were oriented towards marketing, I think many apply to stock plans – after all, communicating with participants is very much about marketing the aspects and features of your stock plan as a benefit. Some of the tidbits about visual communications included in the article:
The average person gets distracted in eight seconds, though a mere 2.8 seconds is enough to distract some people.
81 percent of people only skim the content they read online. (Usability expert Jakob Nielsen has written that the average user reads at most 20 to 28 percent of words during an average visit.)
People form a first impression in a mere 50 milliseconds.
An estimated 84 percent of communications will be visual by 2018.
An estimated 79 percent of internet traffic will be video content by 2018.
Posts that include images produce 650 percent higher engagement than text-only posts
If your stock plan communications are still very text heavy, it’s time to explore how infographics, video, and charts can take those communications to a more effective level.
And, I’m perfectly willing to do another follow on to this topic as interest warrants – I’d love to hear from some of you issuers about what you’re doing to include visual content in your participant messaging. Thanks to all those who shared their visuals with us!
As we reported in the Nov-Dec 2015 NASPP Advisor, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced in October that he is giving 6.8 million shares of common stock that he owns back to Twitter, to be used in Twitter’s stock plan. I started looking into this a little further and found some interesting details.
Not So Fast
Dorsey donated shares he already owned to the plan, unlike other CEOs who have given back outstanding options or awards. Because of this, the shares can’t simply be added to the stock plan. For most companies, the only way to add shares reacquired from investors into a stock plan is to submit the allocation to a shareholder vote.
Why Not Contribute Awards?
It would have been less complicated for Dorsey to have agreed to the cancellation of outstanding options or awards, as other CEOs have done (e.g., see our coverage of LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s decision to forgo his stock grant in the Mar-Apr 2016 Advisor). These shares can be added back to the plan without shareholder approval. But Dorsey doesn’t have a lot of outstanding awards to give up; he has voluntarily worked without compensation since becoming CEO and, thus, wasn’t granted any awards in 2015. He only has 2,000,000 outstanding stock options.
Enter the Proxy Advisors and Institutional Investors
Of course, submitting the plan to a shareholder vote leads to an analysis of the plan by proxy advisors and investors. It can even lead to a new Equity Plan Scorecard evaluation by ISS. A bit of news that caught my eye was that Twitter had to agree to prohibit repricing without shareholder approval under the plan to secure a favorable vote. Repricing without shareholder approval is a deal-breaker under the EPSC.
It’s Complicated
My first thought on reading this was “no good deed goes unpunished.” But, on second thought, I’m not sure that’s the case here. I’m not even sure this is a good deed. Rather than submit the proposal as a allocation of shares to their existing plan, Twitter adopted an entirely new plan for just the 6.8 million shares. The amendment to prohibit repricing only applies to this new plan; as far as I can tell, repricing is still permitted without shareholder approval under Twitter’s existing plans (under which any currently underwater options would likely have been granted).
Where’s the Urgency?
I was surprised to note that Twitter had over 110 million shares available in its 2013 plan as of December 31 and that the plan includes an evergreen provision, under which close to 35 million shares were added to the plan this year. It looks like Twitter granted less than 25 million shares last year, so it seems hard to believe that they are going to need those 6.8 million shares anytime soon.
Which makes me wonder why Dorsey donated the shares. Was it just a publicity stunt? A way to increase employee morale? (And, if so, did it work? Better than donating the 2,000,000 outstanding options would have worked?)
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what tax withholding rate can be used for federal income tax purposes, now that the FASB’s update to ASC 718 is final and companies are free to adopt it. So I thought I’d take a blog entry to clarify what’s changed and what hasn’t.
Who’s the Decider on Tax Withholding Procedures
One thing that a lot of folks seem to have forgotten is that the FASB doesn’t determine tax withholding procedures; they just determine how you account for situations in which tax is withheld. The ultimate authority on how much tax you should (and can) withhold in the United States is the IRS, not the FASB.
Tax Withholding for Supplemental Payments
I’ve blogged about the rules for withholding on supplemental payments, which include stock plan transactions, quite a bit (search on the term “Excess Withholding” in the NASPP Blog). There are two choices when it comes to withholding taxes on stock plan transactions for employees who have received less than $1 million in supplemental payments for the year:
Withhold at the flat rate (currently 25%). No other rate is permissible.
Withhold at the employee’s W-4 rate. Here again, no other rate is permissible.
If employees want you to withhold additional FIT, they have to submit a new W-4 requesting the withholding (as a flat dollar amount, not a percentage) and you have to agree to withhold at the W-4 rate. This is stated in IRS Publication 15 and even more emphatically in IRS Information Letter 2012-0063. Whether you are using method 1 or 2, you can’t arbitrarily select a withholding rate.
Where Does the FASB Come Into This?
The FASB has no authority over these requirements and they didn’t amend ASC 718 to make is easier for you to ignore the IRS requirements. They amended ASC 718 to make it easier for companies that grant awards to non-US employees to allow those employees to use share withholding. Other countries don’t have a flat rate, making it challenging for the US stock plan administration group to figure out the correct withholding rate for non-US employees. This would allow companies to withhold at the maximum rate in other countries and refund the excess to employees through local payroll (who is more easily able to figure out the correct withholding rate).
The only change for US tax withholding procedures is that if you want to use the W-4 rate to withhold excess FIT, withholding shares for the excess payment will no longer trigger liability treatment once you adopt the update to ASC 718. But if you want to withhold excess FIT, you still have to follow the IRS procedures to do so. Previously, even if you had followed the IRS W-4 procedures, withholding shares for an excess tax payment would have triggered liability treatment.
Why Not Use the W-4 Rate?
No one wants to use the W-4 rate because it is impossible to figure out. You have to aggregate the income from the stock plan transaction with the employee’s other income for the payroll period, which the stock plan administration group doesn’t have any visibility to. The rate varies depending on the number of exemptions the employee claims on Form W-4. And the rate is complicated to figure out. I count at least seven official methods of figuring out this rate and companies can make up their own method (but if they make up a method, they have to apply it consistently, the stock plan administration group can’t make up a method that is different than the method the payroll group uses).
The upshot is that you literally can’t figure it out. You would have to run the income through your payroll system to figure out what the tax withholding should be. And that’s a problem because your stock plan administration system is designed to figure out the withholding and tell payroll what it is, not the other way around.
What’s the Penalty?
Members often ask me what the penalty is for withholding extra FIT without following the IRS procedures. Generally there isn’t a penalty to the company for overwithholding, provided there’s no intent to defraud the IRS (if you don’t understand how overwithholding could involve tax fraud, see “Excess Withholding, Part 2“) and the withholding is at the request of the employee. Doing this on a one-off basis, at the occasional request of an employee, probably won’t result in substantial penalties to the company, especially if the employee has appropriately completed Form W-4 for his/her tax situation. (Note, however, that I’m not a tax advisor. You should consult your own advisors to assess the risk of penalty to your company.)
But I’ve encountered a number of companies that want to create a system to automate electing a higher withholding rate without following the W-4 procedures (in some cases, for all of their award holders). I think that it could be problematic to create an automated system that circumvents the W-4 process, especially in light of Information Letter 2012-0063. That system is likely to be noticed if the company is audited, and I think it could have negative ramifications.
