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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Big Bucks who wrote (14272)	4/13/2005 12:48:31 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

SEC Likely to Give Reprieve on Expensing Wednesday April 13, 12:43 pm ET By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer SEC Likely to Give Most Companies Six-Month Reprieve From Stock Option Expensing WASHINGTON (AP) -- Most U.S. companies would get a six-month reprieve from new rules requiring employees' stock options to be counted against profits in a move likely to be made by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The new rules set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the nation's accounting rule-maker, call for publicly traded companies to record employee stock options as an expense beginning with their first fiscal reporting period after June 15. The mandate could dramatically reduce the reported earnings of many big companies, especially in the high-tech industry. But SEC staff members have recommended delaying when the rules take effect, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity and confirming a report in The Wall Street Journal. The recommendation is to make the rules effective for companies' fiscal years, not quarters, starting after June 15. Most companies have years beginning Jan. 1, giving them an additional six months to comply. The SEC commissioners are expected to vote to approve the delay, which is supported by the agency's chairman, William Donaldson, the person said. Since the FASB proposed the options expensing rules in March 2004, many companies have complained that they impose an accounting burden at the same time that significant new corporate-accountability rules are taking effect in the wake of the 2002 scandals. The options expensing rules already have been delayed by six months once before, last October, by the rule-setting board at the request of SEC officials The most vocal opponents of any mandatory expensing of stock options have been companies in Silicon Valley's high-tech industry where stock options for employees created legions of millionaires in the dot-com era. The prized perks for employees allow them to buy shares of their company's stock in the future at a set price. If the stock rises before the options are exercised, the employee can buy the stock at the predetermined, lower price, then sell it at the higher, current price -- and pocket the difference. Last month, the SEC issued guidelines for the new rules that allow companies latitude in measuring the value of their employees' stock options. The guidelines said that to a reasonable extent, companies don't have to all use the same methods to value them.