Question

100 words for each Question please

1. What accounting standard in 2004 caused stock options to decline as the primary source of non-cash compensation? Why?

2. Does compensation expense from stock options meet the definition of an expense as discussed in SFAC 6? Why?

3. Do you think compensation expense from stock options should be recognized as an expense? Choose one position, and support it.

Answer 1

The time has come to end the debate on accounting for stock options; the controversy has been going on far too long. In fact, the rule governing the reporting of executive stock options dates back to 1972, when the Accounting Principles Board, the predecessor to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), issued APB 25. The rule specified that the cost of options at the grant date should be measured by their intrinsic value—the difference between the current fair market value of the stock and the exercise price of the option. Under this method, no cost was assigned to options when their exercise price was set at the current market price.

The rationale for the rule was fairly simple: Because no cash changes hands when the grant is made, issuing a stock option is not an economically significant transaction. That’s what many thought at the time. What’s more, little theory or practice was available in 1972 to guide companies in determining the value of such untraded financial instruments.

APB 25 was obsolete within a year. The publication in 1973 of the Black-Scholes formula triggered a huge boom in markets for publicly traded options, a movement reinforced by the opening, also in 1973, of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. It was surely no coincidence that the growth of the traded options markets was mirrored by an increasing use of share option grants in executive and employee compensation. The National Center for Employee Ownership estimates that nearly 10 million employees received stock options in 2000; fewer than 1 million did in 1990. It soon became clear in both theory and practice that options of any kind were worth far more than the intrinsic value defined by APB 25.

Stock option expensing is a method of accounting for the value of share options, distributed as incentives to employees, within the profit and loss reporting of a listed business. On the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement say that the loss from the exercise is accounted for by noting the difference between the market price (if one exists) of the shares and the cash received, the exercise price, for issuing those shares through the option.

Opponents of considering options an expense say that the real loss- due to the difference between the exercise price and the market price of the shares- is already stated on the cash flow statement. They would also point out that a separate loss in earnings per share (due to the existence of more shares outstanding) is also recorded on the balance sheet by noting the dilution of shares outstanding. Simply, accounting for this on the income statement is believed to be redundant to them.