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94–481 PDF 2004

S. Hrg. 108–671

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON EXPENSING STOCK

OPTIONS: SUPPORTING AND STRENGTHENING

THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE FINANCIAL

ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD

HEARING

BEFORE THE

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, THE BUDGET, AND 

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 20, 2004

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

AMY B. NEWHOUSE, Chief Clerk

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, THE BUDGET, AND INTERNATIONAL 

SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL J. RUSSELL, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Minority Staff Director 

NANCI E. LANGLEY, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

TARA E. BAIRD, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Fitzgerald ............................................................................................ 1

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 5

Senator Bennett ................................................................................................ 5

Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 7

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 13

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2004

Hon. Mike Enzi, a U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming ............................... 16

Hon. Barbara Boxer, a U.S. Senator from the State of California ...................... 20

Robert H. Herz, Chairman, Financial Accounting Standards Board .................. 23

Hon. Paul A. Volcker, Chairman, International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation, and former Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal 

Reserve System .................................................................................................... 26

Jack T. Ciesielski, President, R.G. Associates, Inc. .............................................. 46

Damon Silvers, Associate General Counsel, The American Federation of 

Labor—Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) ............................... 49

Donald P. Delves, President, The Delves Group ................................................... 51

Mark Heesen, Presdient, National Venture Capital Association ........................ 52

James K. Glassman, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute ............... 54

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Boxer, Hon. Barbara: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 20

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 77

Ciesielski, Jack T.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 46

Prepared statement with an attachment ....................................................... 89

Addition to written statement ......................................................................... 97

Delves, Donald P.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 51

Prepared statement with an attachment ....................................................... 100

Enzi, Hon. Mike: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 16

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 73

Glassman, James K.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 54

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 112

Heesen, Mark: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 52

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 105

Herz, Robert H.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 23

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 80

Silvers, Damon: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 29

Volcker, Hon. Paul A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 26

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 86

Page

IV

APPENDIX

Prepared statements from: 

American Institute of Certified Public Accounts ........................................... 126

Association for Investment Management and Research ............................... 128

William R. Sweeney, Jr., Vice President, on behalf of Electronic Data 

Systems Corporation ..................................................................................... 143

Coalition to Stop Stock Options ...................................................................... 145

Letter to The Honorable Robert H. Herz from Senator Enzi dated December 

5, 2003 ................................................................................................................... 148

Article from the Wall Street Journal entitled ‘‘FASB Chairman Calls For 

Investors To Speak Up On Options,’’ submitted by Senator Enzi ................... 150

Letter of clarification from Mark Heesen, President, NVCA, dated April 30, 

2004 ....................................................................................................................... 152

‘‘The Analyst’s Accounting Observer,’’ submitted by Mr. Ciesielski .................... 153

The study entitled ‘‘Corporate Governance, Executive Compensation, and 

Strategic Human Resource Management From 1992–2002, A Portrait Of 

What Took Place,’’ by Professors Joseph R. Blasi and Douglas L. Kruse ....... 212

Questions and Responses for the Record from: 

Mr. Herz ............................................................................................................ 270

Mr. Volcker ....................................................................................................... 285

Mr. Ciesielski .................................................................................................... 290

(1)

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON EXPENSING STOCK 

OPTIONS: SUPPORTING AND STRENGTHENING THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD 

TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2004

U.S. SENATE,

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, THE BUDGET, AND

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:33 p.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Peter G. Fitzgerald, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Fitzgerald, Bennett, Akaka, Levin, and 

Lieberman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR FITZGERALD 

Senator FITZGERALD. This meeting will come to order. I would 

like to thank all of the witnesses who are here today to testify. 

Some of you came very long ways and made special arrangements 

in otherwise very busy schedules to be here, and we definitely appreciate that very much. 

This oversight hearing is to examine the new Financial Accounting Standards Board rule which will require companies to expense 

an estimate of the value of stock option compensation to their employees and management. I will state up front that I agree with 

FASB’s new rule and that I favor it. 

Several bills regarding this issue have been introduced in Congress, both in the House and the Senate, and there is going to be 

a hearing on the House side tomorrow to examine some of those 

bills. We will hear today from Senator Enzi, who is a proponent of 

one of these bills. The bills in varying forms would move to disallow FASB’s new rule or to mandate the treatment of stock option 

compensation for accounting purposes as a matter of Federal law. 

I disagree with those bills, and I oppose them for two reasons: 

One, I agree with the new FASB rule, although I think it could be 

stronger. I think it is actually thoroughly permissive, but I nonetheless support it. But two, I believe that political interference with 

our private sector standards accounting board is a dangerous precedent, and one can think of all sorts of other areas in which we 

could follow this precedent. What if Congress started usurping the 

authority of the Food and Drug Administration to allow a new 

pharmaceutical to be introduced on the market? I think it is a bad 

2

idea for politicians in the House and the Senate to be substituting 

political decisions for an expert agency, or in this case, an expert 

private sector accounting standards board. 

We have been down this road before. Back in 1993–94 FASB proposed a new rule that would have required the expensing of stock 

option compensation. At that time Senator Lieberman introduced a 

resolution in the Senate which condemned FASB’s new rule. I 

think the vote was 88 to something. It was very lopsided in favor 

of Senator Lieberman’s resolution. And a separate bill was introduced that would have effectively put FASB out of business if they 

did not back down from their new rule that would have required 

the expensing of stock options. I think Congress’ interference with 

that 1993–94 proposal of FASB resulted in disastrous consequences. 

One of my most vivid recollections in my last 5 plus years in the 

Senate was sitting in on the Enron hearings in the Commerce 

Committee, where we saw a company which had its top 29 executives cash in 1.1 billion in stock option compensation in the months 

immediately prior to the company’s stock market collapse and 

eventual bankruptcy. I think that the Senate opened the floodgates 

to an anything goes accounting mentality in the late 1990’s, and 

many other companies wound up like Enron, Global Crossing, 

WorldCom, and so forth. 

Opponents of the new FASB rule say that it is difficult to estimate the value of options. I am not sure I really agree with that. 

I think options can be sold for cash which makes them as good as 

cash. Warrants are similar if not functionally the same as options, 

and they are valued and sold all the time. Options on stocks are 

traded on markets all over the world. In Chicago we have the 

world’s largest option exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange. My guess is that many executives who have copious 

amounts of options sometimes assign huge values to them on their 

own personal financial statements when they go to borrow from a 

bank. In fact, as a former banker, I recall seeing financial statements where executives holding large amounts of options would list 

them as a substantial asset on their personal financial statements. 

In any case, it is difficult to value a lot of other things for which 

we require companies to account. It is certainly difficult to estimate 

pension liabilities, the value of derivative positions. If you are a 

bank, it is very difficult and a matter of imprecision to estimate 

what your loan loss reserve should be. Impairment of goodwill is 

very difficult to assess, and even the age-old question of what is the 

useful life of plant and equipment. That is a very difficult accounting decision. Yet no one argues that for these other items, difficulty 

to estimate gives a company license to pretend that these expenses 

do not exist either. 

Opponents say that stock options require no cash outlay by a 

company and that they therefore need not be expensed. But depreciation, for example, requires no cash outlay either, and no one argues that we should not try to account for the real expense of the 

using up or the exhausting of plant and equipment that a company 

will have to replace. Furthermore, large amounts of stock options 

often later necessitate large cash outlays. Companies sometimes 

have to use more cash on share repurchases to stem shareholder 

3

dilution than they would have on cash compensation for their employees. 

Opponents say stock options are not a real expense to a company. If that is so, why do we allow companies to take a tax deduction for the expense of issuing stock options? If the opponents were 

consistent in their thinking, they would support changing the current IRS rules which allow for the tax deductibility of stock option 

compensation. 

Opponents say that requiring options to be expensed would penalize the earnings of young promising companies, and thereby 

make it more difficult for such companies to survive and succeed. 

But as Warren Buffett has written, ‘‘Why then require cash compensation to be recorded as an expense given that it too penalizes 

the earnings of young promising companies?’’ Going further, Mr. 

Buffett asks, ‘‘Why not allow companies to pay all of their expenses 

in options and then pretend that these expenses don’t exist either?’’ 

In fact, I know that many companies have in fact paid a lot of their 

bills in options. I have talked to a lot of law firms in Chicago that 

took stock options in lieu of cash in the late 1990’s for their legal 

bills. 

I would like to focus for just a moment on the shareholder dilution impact of stock options. Last night it occurred to me to pull 

out the classic 1934 edition of ‘‘Security Analysis’’ by Benjamin 

Graham and David Dodd. I looked to see if they had anything in 

there about stock options, and they do in fact have a whole section 

on what in 1934 they called ‘‘stock option warrants,’’ which seem 

effectively the same thing. They said stock option warrants were 

frequently paid to managers or insiders in companies or to promoters of stock. In the 1920’s and early 1930’s it was common 

when someone would sell your stock, you would give them stock option warrants as compensation. Benjamin Graham and David 

Dodd, I think, are very eloquent in describing what the effect is 

when companies issue options. 

In a company that has common shares only and no options, the 

common shareholders will capture 100 percent of any future rise in 

the value of the company. Common shareholders have an inherent 

right to the future enhancement or improvement in the value of a 

company. When you issue options, you are allowing someone else 

a claim on the future enhancement in the community that is diluting the formerly 100 percent claim on the future enhancement or 

growth in the company that the shareholders had. If a company’s 

prospects for future revenue and earnings growth are strong, the 

value that is taken away from common shareholders by issuing 

stock options and given to the option holders can be quite substantial. In fact, if enough stock options are issued, nearly all of the 

common shareholders’ stake in the future rise in the value of the 

company can be taken away from them. From my standpoint, there 

is nothing inherently wrong with taking a share of the future rise 

in the growth of a company away from the shareholders and giving 

it to the management or the employees or someone else. There is 

nothing inherently wrong with that. In fact, when we pay cash 

compensation, you are taking cash away from the shareholders and 

giving it to someone else. 

4

What troubles me is that this taking away, this subtraction from 

the shareholders’ interest, is not disclosed to the shareholders or to 

other investors who may be looking at this. The trouble is that current accounting standard do not require that the taking away of 

value from the shareholders by virtue of the issuance of stock options be fully disclosed. Companies are not now required to reflect 

the expense of issuing options on their income statements. Moreover, the dilution of shareholders’ claims to the earnings of the 

company is only disclosed for so-called ‘‘in the money’’ options, but 

is not required to be disclosed for options that have been issued 

and are not yet in the money. 

Benjamin Graham and David Dodd had a very simple way of 

looking at this. They said that the value of common stock plus the 

value of stock options equals the value of the common stock alone 

if there were no stock options. Thus, the way they put it, when you 

give stock options to someone, you are taking away something of 

value from the shareholders and this needs to be reflected. It 

should be reflected. If I could just read a paragraph from this book 

because Benjamin Graham went on to describe stock option warrants as a very dangerous device for diluting stock values. ‘‘The 

stock option’’—and he refers to it as the option warrant. I am just 

going to call it the stock option. ‘‘The stock option is a fundamentally dangerous and objectional device because it affects an indirect 

and usually unrecognized dilution of common stock values. The 

stockholders view the issue of warrants with indifference, failing to 

realize that part of their equity in the future is being taken away 

from them. The stock market, with its usual heedlessness, applies 

the same basis of valuation to common shares whether warrants or 

stock options are outstanding or not. Hence, options may be availed 

of to pay unreasonable bonuses to promoters or other insiders without fear of comprehension or criticism by the rank and file of stockholders. Furthermore, the option device facilitates the establishment of an artificially high aggregate market valuation for a company’s securities, because with a little manipulation large values 

can be established for a huge issue of options without reducing the 

quotation of common shares.’’

Under current rules, the financial statements of companies that 

do not expense stock option compensation are, in my judgment, fictitious. The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s proposed new 

rule would make earnings reports more accurate and would move 

financial statements from the fiction to the nonfiction section of the 

public domain. When it comes to stock options, expensing them 

should not be an option. Truth in financial reporting should be 

mandatory. 

Finally, in closing, I would like to note that there were many 

companies lobbying furiously in support of the bills that would 

overturn FASB’s new rule. They are all over. Lobbyists are swarming the halls of the Capitol, lobbying furiously. We asked several 

of them to appear before our Subcommittee and explain their views 

in public. None of them was willing to do so. I think the fact that 

none of them was willing to appear publicly and explain why the 

company is in favor of the bills suggests that they are sheepish 

about what they are doing, and that perhaps deep down, they too 

5

recognize the unwholesomeness of the fiction that they are hoping 

to perpetuate. 

Without further ado, I would like to turn it over to our Ranking 

Member, Senator Akaka from Hawaii. Senator Akaka, thank you 

for being here. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is always a pleasure to work with you, and I want to commend you for 

conducting this hearing today. 

I want to add my welcome to our friends and colleagues, Senator 

Enzi from Wyoming and Senator Boxer from California, and also 

our witnesses today. 

Mr. Chairman, Enron, WorldCom and other corporate governance failures demonstrate the dangers of not having independent 

accounting and auditing standards. The landmark Sarbanes-Oxley 

accounting reform and legislation included a provision that 

strengthened the independence of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, FASB, by providing a more secure funding mechanism 

through mandatory assessments on publicly-traded companies. 

FASB is intended to be independent and make their accounting 

rules on the basis of its judgment. 

Now that FASB has proposed that all forms of share-based payments to employees, including stock options, be treated the same, 

the same as other forms of compensation by recognizing the related 

costs in the income statement, the reinforced independence of 

FASB will be tested. 

If Congress interferes with the FASB proposal, the dangerous 

precedent of intervention into accounting standards will be set. 

Congressional interference is detrimental to the independent 

nature of FASB, and accounting treatment of stock options is a 

matter best left to FASB to determine. 

We must have an independent organization establishing standards of financial accounting and reporting in an open environment 

that is both fair and objective. These standards are essential to 

investors having access to transparent and understandable information. 

The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 provides the Securities and 

Exchange Commission with authority over financial accounting and 

reporting standards for publicly-held companies. Throughout its 

history, the SEC has relied on the private sector for this critical 

function. We must protect the integrity of the standards for developing the process and exercise Congressional restraint on this matter to ensure that FASB is allowed to pursue policies that it considers to be in the best interest of the public. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing, and look forward 

to the witnesses’ testimony. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you, Senator Akaka. Senator Bennett. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNETT 

Senator BENNETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding the hearings. 

6

This is an issue that has been with us a long time, and it is an 

issue that does not seem to go away and does not seem to get resolved, and I am not quite sure I understand why, because there 

are good people of good faith on both sides of the issue. Let me outline that I am in favor of expensing stock options. Let me state 

that I am in favor of FASB independence, and agree that Congress 

should not be the one to be making accounting standards. 

Having said both of those things, and feeling very strongly about 

both of those things, I think FASB has missed the boat badly on 

this particular issue and is in danger of doing significant harm to 

our economy, and that raises the question of whether or not policy 

makers in the Congress should be heard, not because I do not believe in FASB independence and not because I am not in favor of 

expensing stock options. But I go back to the fundamental rule of 

medicine, which is do no harm, and there is a potential here for 

significant harm. 

I think the reason that there is this gulf between your position, 

Mr. Chairman, and my concern, is that we are assuming that a 

stock option is a stock option is a stock option, and they are clearly 

not. I am glad you quoted from the 1934 book, Mr. Chairman, because it represented an attitude in 1934 that all of these things are 

created equal, and they are either good or bad. They should be either expensed of not expensed. They are very clearly, in today’s 

economy and in today’s corporate world, nowhere near created 

equal. The kind of stock option that you were talking about, Mr. 

Chairman, which you said can be sold as cash, and you talked 

about a market for options in your home State of Illinois, is not a 

definition of the kind of stock option that has given rise to the concern here. 

Let me give you an example to illustrate this. The kind of stock 

option that can be traded immediately upon being granted, obviously has a significant value and a market, not that this kind exists, but theoretically a stock option that is exercisable only in 30 

years has no value whatsoever. Well, nobody issues stock options 

that vest in 30 years, but I put those two as to outside parameters 

of where we are. There are people who give options that vest in 3 

years and options that vest in 5 years, and options that vest longer 

period of time that are obviously on this continuum and somewhere 

away from the options that vest the day they are granted. 

When I was working for a New York Stock Exchange listed company in my youth and got some stock options, they were vested the 

day I received them, and back in the 1960’s that was the norm, and 

therefore, a statement that they ought to have been expensed, to 

me was a logical statement. Today that is no longer the norm. 

Today you have these many gradations of the kind I have described, and so as I say, I am in favor of an expensing statement 

with respect to options, and I am in favor of FASB’s independence, 

but I am tremendously disappointed that from all of the comments 

FASB has received from companies that extend options that vest 

at different times and have clearly different values, have received 

no consideration whatsoever in the FASB rule that has come down. 

Maybe I just do not understand the rule and that is why I am here 

at the hearings, but there is no question in my mind that the use 

of stock options in creative ways that an author in 1934 never conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
7

templated has created significant economic value in our overall 

economy in ways that cannot be measured by either of the two 

methods that FASB had adopted. 

And to come back to the fundamental question that you raise, 

Mr. Chairman, where I am 100 percent in agreement with you on 

the principle, but in disagreement with you on the outcome. We 

want our financial statements to be accurate. We want our financial statements to record what is happening in the marketplace, 

and in my view, a financial statement that values an option that 

does not vest for 5 years at the same price as an option that vests 

in 24 hours is a financial statement that is inaccurate and misleading, and therefore, a problem for our investors. 

As I have talked to people on Wall Street about this, they have 

said, well, we are smart enough to figure out the real impact of 

these options, and we will ignore the article value being attached 

to these options by FASB because we understand that that information is wrong. So therefore, this whole thing will be a nullity. 

If that is the case, why in the world are we doing it if it is going 

to be a nullity? 

I have not signed on to Senator Enzi’s bill. I have some problems 

with Senator Enzi’s bill, but I have real problems with the way this 

whole thing has come down to an either/or, yes, you are in favor, 

no, you are not; yes, they should, no, they should not. I will sign 

up with the ‘‘yes, they should’’ guys as long as we understand that 

an option is not necessarily an option is not necessarily an option. 

Just because it has the same name, by no means says it has the 

same value. You have to look at the details of the option and value 

it according to those details before I will be comfortable with the 

position that FASB has taken. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Senator Bennett, thank you. Senator Levin, 

I believe you were here first. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding these hearings. It is a very significant subject that we are 

discussing here today, and there is a long history to it. As we all 

know, 10 years ago when the effort was made by FASB to address 

this issue in the way that they felt was the proper way to do it as 

an independent standard-setting body, the political pressure was so 

heavy that they had to back off, and I admire FASB for doing what 

they think is the right thing to do, and I am going to do everything 

I can to protect that independence. 

It is one of the toughest accounting issues that they have had in 

their history, but I think for us to intervene here and to say that 

we know better than they do how to set an accounting standard 

here in the Congress, would be to go in exactly the opposite direction as Sarbanes-Oxley which was to try to increase the independence of FASB, as Senator Akaka said, by giving it an independent 

source of revenue. 

The issue for me is not whether or not Congress is for or against 

stock options any more than whether or not we are in favor of bonuses or other forms of incentive pay. Those other forms of incentive pay, no matter how conditional they are, are all treated as exVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
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penses. They are all valued one way or another, the best way that 

you can. As the Chairman said, there are many things that are valued that are very difficult to value, but there are ways of valuing, 

the best way that accountants can figure out how to do it. There 

is an independent standards board to set those rules. Without that 

independence we are going to be politicizing accounting rules 

around here which is the worst thing we can do, as far as I am concerned, for this market. 

Stock options, since the 1980’s, have provided the majority of 

CEO pay. Every year since then the CEO compensation has gone 

up, good times and bad, while leaving average worker pay further 

and further behind. JPMorgan once said CEO pay should not exceed 20 times the average worker pay. In 1990 the pay gap between CEOs and average workers was at 100 times the pay of an 

average worker. Average CEO pay in this country is now 300 times 

the average worker pay. Stock options are the largest single factor 

in that pay gap. They operate as stealth compensation because 

most U.S. companies do not show stock option compensation as an 

expense on their books. Those companies do deduct stock option 

pay as an expense on their tax returns. That is the double standard. That is the gimmick that allows companies to show a huge 

compensation expense deduction on their tax returns but zero expense on their company books. Stock options are the only form of 

compensation that companies are allowed to deduct as an expense 

on their tax returns, although they do not appear as an expense 

on their books. There are many additional forms of compensation 

which are very difficult to value, as Senator Bennett pointed out, 

that are nonetheless valued as an expense on the company’s books. 

So there is only one exception, and that is stock options. It is not 

because of the difficulty either. It is because of the political pressure against doing what the accounting board has long ago determined was the only way that you could properly reflect compensation expenses on a company’s books, and that is to show it as an 

expense. 

FASB wants to end that double standard, and it seems to me 

that we should not intervene and say that somehow or other we 

know better than FASB. The International Accounting Standards 

Board, whose standards affect 90 countries, is now requiring stock 

option expensing. Canada began requiring stock option expensing 

this year. A 2002 survey of financial experts by the Association for 

Investment Management and Research found out that more than 

80 percent support stock option expensing. All four major accounting firms also favor expensing. 

There are many arguments that have been used against it, and 

I am going to ask that part of my statement, addressing those arguments, be made part of the record, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Without objection. 

Senator LEVIN. One claim which I will spend one minute addressing is that somehow or other if we allow FASB to proceed 

independently that is going to depress the share prices of individual companies but also damage the stock market or the economy 

as a whole, and well-respected financial analysts disagree. Goldman Sachs’s Global Equity Research recently issued a report supporting stock option expensing and said: ‘‘We do not expect a mateVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
9

rial impact on the share prices of most firms.’’ UBS Investment Research said that expensing is a ‘‘long past due change,’’ and ‘‘medicine for the long-term health of companies and investors. It will 

shed light on the true profitability of many companies, helping to 

separate those that deserve investor capital from those that do 

not.’’ 

Merrill Lynch says the argument that expensing options will 

harm U.S. technology leadership and job creation is based on ‘‘the 

following faulty logic. U.S. technology leadership and job creation 

depend on the systematic misrepresentation of financial statements.’’ They went on, ‘‘One might as well argue that money spent 

on R&D should not count as an expense because it provides employment and helps industries advance.’’

There is one additional point I want to make, and that has to do 

with the Enron investigation. I was chairing the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations when we had the hearings into Enron, 

and even though I do not think Congress should be substituting its 

judgment on accounting standards, because I do not think we are 

the right people to do it, we sure as heck can reflect our experience 

when it comes to investigations of Enron. I could not figure out 

how it was that Enron executives could be cooking the books, making loans, for instance, look like income, and not run into the problem of their books showing these huge revenues which therefore inflate their stock price, which therefore make their huge amount of 

options worth more, but not have to worry about paying taxes on 

those revenues. 

How is it that somehow or another an executive could figure out 

that we could show phony inflated revenue over here but not worry 

about coughing up the bucks to pay Uncle Sam the income taxes 

on those revenues which we show on our books? This is a little 

known but a very important part of Enron. The answer was those 

same stock options that were used to enrich those executives in a 

company that went bankrupt. Those stock options, because they 

are taken as a tax deduction, allowed Enron, 4 out of 5 years, to 

pay no taxes despite huge apparent earnings shown on their books. 

Just the year they went bankrupt, CEOs at Enron took home $123 

million from exercising stock options, the same year that so many 

lost their life savings. 

These stock options played a very vital but yet unrecognized role 

in the Enron scandal, and it was part and parcel of that scandal. 

It probably could not have happened but for the role of stock options being used as a tax deduction. 

For the last 5 years before it declared bankruptcy, from 1996 

until the year 2000, while Enron was telling the world it was earning these huge revenues, and claiming a 5-year U.S. profit of $1.8 

billion, the analysis of Enron’s public filings by the Citizens for Tax 

Justice, showed that they deducted $1.7 billion in stock option compensation from its tax returns as a business expense. 

I think we ought to support the independence of FASB and we 

ought to base that, first, on their independence, and our determination hopefully to reflect their courage with our own courage; but 

second, we ought to base it on the experience that we have recently 

had with Enron that shows that the role of stock options is more 

than just giving huge amounts of grants mainly to executives, not 

10

exclusively, but probably 90 to 95 percent overall to executives, but 

also to permit the kind of deceptive accounting practices to occur 

without being seen for what they are, which is deceptive accounting 

practices that made Enron look a lot better than it really was. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Levin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN 

Beginning in 2001, a wave of corporate scandals engulfed the U.S. business world. 

Enron, Aldephia, Quest, Tyco, Worldcom—an alphabet of corporate misconduct undercut investor confidence in our financial systems, our markets and our financial 

regulators. To stop the wrongdoing and restore investor confidence, Congress held 

hearings, issued reports, and enacted landmark legislation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 

of 2002. Our work focused in particular on halting the accounting abuses infecting 

so many corporate books. Among other measures, we created a new Public Company 

Accounting Oversight Board, required companies to disclose material off-balance 

sheet transactions, and strengthened the independence of the private sector body 

that sets U.S. accounting standards, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or 

FASB, by providing it with independent funding. 

Today, because FASB has finally tackled one of the toughest accounting issues in 

its history by proposing to require companies to treat stock option compensation as 

an expense in their financial statements like all other forms of compensation, opponents of stock option expensing want Congress to override FASB’s independent judgment, politicize the standard-setting process, and roll over FASB’s independence. To 

do so would be to undermine key accounting reforms, signal that accounting maneuvers to prop up earnings is still acceptable, and turn our backs on the lessons of 

Enron. It would be a grave mistake. 

The issue isn’t whether Congress is for or against stock options, any more than 

whether we favor bonuses or other forms of incentive pay, but whether FASB should 

be overriden when it determines that stock option pay should be accounted for on 

company books as an expense, just like every other form of compensation. All other 

forms of compensation—salaries, cash bonuses, stock grants, stock appreciation 

rights, golden parachutes, retirement pay—appear as an expense on a company’s 

books. The only exception has been stock options. The issue today is whether FASB 

will be allowed to maintain its independence when it decides to eliminate that exception and treat stock options as an expense, like all other forms of compensation. 

In this country, stock options have typically been provided to corporate executives. 

Since the 1980s, stock options have provided the majority of CEO pay, boosting CEO 

compensation every year through good times and bad, while leaving average worker 

pay further and further behind. J.P. Morgan once said that CEO pay should not exceed 20 times average worker pay. In 1990, the pay gap between CEOs and average 

workers was already 100 times. Last year, CEO pay at about 350 of the largest U.S. 

public companies averaged $8 million, a 9 percent increase over the prior year. Average CEO pay in this country is now 300 times average worker pay, and stock options are the largest single factor in that pay gap. 

Stock options operate as stealth compensation, because most U.S. companies don’t 

show stock option compensation as an expense on their books. But those companies 

do deduct stock option pay as an expense on their tax returns. That’s the double 

standard, the gimmick that allows companies to show a huge compensation expense 

deduction on their tax returns but zero expense on their books. In fact, stock options 

are the only type of compensation that companies are allowed to deduct as an expense on their tax returns even if the stock options never appear as an expense on 

their books. FASB’s proposal would put an end to that double standard by requiring 

companies to treat stock option compensation as an expense on their financial statements. 

FASB proposes taking this action because it views stock option pay as compensation. It has concluded that omitting this expense from a company’s financial statement produces misleading accounting results, including making the company’s earnings appear larger than they really are. FASB’s view is the consensus position in 

the accounting field. The International Accounting Standards Board, whose standards affect 90 countries, is requiring stock option expensing beginning next year. 

Canada began requiring stock option expensing this year. A 2002 survey of financial 

experts by the Association for Investment Management and Research found that 

more than 80 percent support stock option expensing. All four major accounting 

firms also favor expensing. 

11

But opponents predict a parade of horribles if FASB goes ahead with its plan. 

They predict this accounting change will stifle investment and innovation, hurt our 

stock markets, lead to outsourcing of high tech jobs, and wreak havoc in our economy. But a reality check shows these dire predictions are overblown. Since 2002, 

nearly 500 companies have voluntarily agreed to begin expensing stock options on 

their books. These companies represent about 20% of the number of companies on 

the Standard and Poor’s index of companies and 39% of that index based on market 

capitalization. None of the predicted horribles has happened. 

Let’s look at some of the claims more closely. 

Some opponents claim expensing stock options will stifle innovation in business. 

But many of the 500 companies expensing options are successful, high tech 

innovators like Microsoft, Netflix, and Amazon. They also include such diverse companies as General Motors, Dow Chemical, Boeing, BankOne, UPS, and Coca-Cola, 

each of which relies on technical innovation for business success. The CEO of 

Netflix, a high tech company that began expensing stock options last year, has stated: ‘‘[I]nnovation continues unabated. . . . We innovate because it thrills us, not because of some accounting treatment.’’

Other opponents claim that stock option expensing will lower their earnings 

which will, in turn, cause their stock prices to fall and devastate their investment 

prospects. But the facts, again, show otherwise. Just last month, a leading executive 

pay expert, Towers Perrin, issued a study examining 335 companies that switched 

to stock option expensing and found that stock performance was the same, on average, as the rest of the S&P 500 and mid-cap 400 indices. Expensing did not affect 

their stock prices. 

Despite this factual evidence, some opponents go even farther and warn that expensing will not only depress the share prices of individual companies, but also 

damage the stock market or the U.S. economy as a whole. Well-respected financial 

analysts disagree.

—Goldman Sachs Global Equity Research recently issued a report supporting stock option expensing and stated: ‘‘We do not expect a material 

impact on the share prices of most firms.’’

—UBS Investment Research has stated that expensing is a ‘‘long past due 

change’’ and ‘‘medicine for the long-term health of companies and investors. It will shed light on the true profitability of many companies, helping to separate those that deserve investor capital from those that do 

not.’’

—Merrill Lynch says the argument that expensing options will harm U.S. 

technology leadership and job creation is based on ‘‘the following faulty 

logic: U.S. technology leadership and job creation depend on the systematic misrepresentation of financial statements. One might as well argue 

that money spent on R&D shouldn’t count as an expense because it provides employment and helps industries advance.’’

—Credit Suisse First Boston Equity Research says: ‘‘We expect companies 

to pay closer attention to the economic cost of their stock option plans. 

Companies don’t focus much on costs that they don’t have to account for. 

. . . [W]e expect to see a decline in the number of options granted, potentially replaced by restricted stock, cash, incentive options, or nothing if 

the company had been overcompensating its employees.’’

—Congress’ own economists at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office 

have also forecast a minimal economic impact, issuing a recent report 

which concludes: ‘‘[R]ecognizing the fair value of employee stock options 

is unlikely to have a significant effect on the economy . . . however, it 

could make fair value information more transparent to less-sophisticated 

investors.’’ 

Honest accounting, in other words, doesn’t hurt the economy. 

Other leaders in the financial and accounting world also support stock option expensing as good for investors and good for markets. They include Federal Reserve 

Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary John Snow, SEC Chairman William 

Donaldson, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Chairman William 

McDonough, former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, former Comptroller General 

Charles Bowsher, investors Warren Buffett, John Biggs and Pete Peterson, Nobel 

Prize Winners Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Merton and Myron Scholes, as well as respected groups such as the Council of Institutional Investors, the Investment Company Institute, Financial Services Forum, Consumer Federation of America, National Association of State Treasurers, Institute of Management Accountants, and 

The Conference Board’s Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise. 

12

President Bush, who doesn’t support expensing stock options, nevertheless opposes Congressional interference with FASB’s independent accounting judgment. 

One of the newer claims of opponents is that stock option expensing will somehow 

force high tech companies to outsource more jobs. But a number of high tech companies, like Cisco, Dell Computers, IBM, and Intel, have already sent hundreds or 

thousands of jobs offshore, while opposing stock option expensing. Intel began 

outsourcing software research and development operations to India several years 

ago; in 2003, its CEO was quoted by the Indian press as saying, ‘‘I can tell you that 

the headcount in India will continue to grow and a lot of back office work is also 

coming.’’ Cisco Systems announced in 2003 that it was ‘‘going to increase 

outsourcing to India in all areas’’ including software development, and in October 

announced a ‘‘China-based staffing solution’’ for Cisco’s Global Technical Response 

Center. 

Dell Computer, which is based in Texas, recently set up customer and technical 

support centers in India, China, Morocco, Slovakia, and design centers in China. It 

also has manufacturing plants in Brazil, Malaysia and China. Although only 36 percent of its revenue comes from overseas sales, Dell has 23,000 employees in other 

countries and only 22,000 here at home. 

These offshoring companies are increasingly paying third world wages for highend products and handsome profits. The stock option expensing proposal is no excuse for their outsourcing decisions: these companies don’t expense their stock options. Worse, by invoking outsourcing fears to justify Congress’ overriding the expertise and independence of FASB, these companies undermine the integrity of our financial reporting systems and accounting standards setting process, both of which 

are critical to investor confidence and long-term capital investment in U.S. companies. 

Another red herring argument is that requiring stock option expensing will eliminate broad-based stock option plans and hurt average employees. The facts are to 

the contrary. Companies that currently offer broad-based plans to their workforce 

such as Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and Netflix, have already determined that they can 

expense options without having to terminate their stock option plans. Other companies, such as Microsoft, are replacing stock options with stock grants, but I haven’t 

heard of their employees complaining about getting actual shares of stock. It is also 

important to remember that most U.S. employers, including many private companies, small businesses, and partnerships, don’t offer stock option compensation to 

their employees; a nationwide survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2000, a 

banner year for stock options, found that only 1.7 percent of non-executive U.S. 

workers actually received any options that year. In short, honest accounting doesn’t 

hurt average workers. 

A final argument used by many opponents is that precisely estimating the value 

of stock options is difficult. But that’s true of many items on a financial statement, 

from the value of goodwill to the reserves required to protect against uncollectible 

receivables or loans. As Warren Buffett once said, the only value that everyone 

agrees is incorrect for a stock option is zero. 

The valuation issue, as well as other technical aspects of stock option accounting, 

ought to be resolved by the accounting experts, of which Congress isn’t one. 

What Congress can add to the debate is its understanding of the role played by 

stock options in too many of the corporate scandals that have come before us. I 

chaired the Enron hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 

and saw how the books were cooked to make loans and fake sales look like income 

so Enron could impress Wall Street analysts and boost its stock price. Stock options 

were the fuel for Enron’s dishonest accounting. Enron’s CEO took home $123 million 

from exercising stock options in the same year the company went bankrupt, and so 

many lost their jobs and life savings. 

In addition to enriching executives, stock options played a second vital, but as yet 

unrecognized, role in the Enron scandal by enabling Enron to show huge paper profits without having to pay taxes on them. During our Subcommittee investigation, 

I wondered how Enron executives could create huge phony profits to increase the 

company’s stock value and make their own stock options worth a fortune, without 

sapping the company’s treasury to pay income taxes on the inflated income. I 

learned the answer was those same stock options, which at the same time they were 

enriching executives, provided Enron with a big enough tax deduction to eliminate 

any worries about taxes. 

For the last five years before it declared bankruptcy, from 1996 until 2000, Enron 

told its stockholders that it was rolling in revenues, claiming a 5-year U.S. profit 

of $1.8 billion, according to an analysis of Enron’s public filings by Citizens for Tax 

Justice. During those same years, Enron deducted about $1.7 billion in stock option 

compensation from its tax returns as a business expense—cutting its taxes by $600 

13

million and eliminating its tax liability entirely in 4 out of the 5 years. In other 

words, the stock option double standard allowed Enron to dole out this form of compensation to its executives, claim a huge tax deduction, and escape paying U.S. 

taxes, while not showing any stock option expense on its inflated financial statements. Enron had a lot of company, by the way, in benefiting from the stock option 

double standard. 

FASB and the folks we rely on to set accounting standards resisted enormous 

pressure from corporate executives when they decided to end the accounting that 

keeps stock options off corporate books as an expense, thereby making a company’s 

earnings look better than they are. Hopefully, Congress will also stand up to the 

powerful political forces being brought to bear to overrule FASB. Congress should 

protect FASB’s independence and its resolution of controversial accounting issues 

based on accounting expertise rather than political considerations. That’s what we 

committed to do two years ago when we enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and it is 

critical that, in this first big test, we continue to champion, preserve, and fortify 

FASB’s independence.

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you, Senator Levin. Senator Lieberman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening 

this discussion, I believe, of a seriously misunderstood problem, 

which is stock options and the abuse of stock options. 

For much of the past decade stock options have been the subject 

of an intense debate, which of course, heated up particularly after 

the collapse of Enron and the succeeding wave of crime by executives of a number of American corporations. Many people obviously 

believe that the silver bullet to stop this corporate crime is to 

change the accounting rules for stock options, force companies to 

count options as expenses when they are granted, they say, and the 

scams and rip-offs would stop. 

I wish it were that easy. Changing the accounting rules is, in my 

opinion, highly unlikely to change the unethical, illegal or scandalous behavior of a corporate executive who does not have the 

scruples to stop himself or herself from taking action that satisfies 

their own greed, and in the process rips off investors and employees and consumers. But I do fear that changing the accounting 

rules is likely to deny access to options to average workers who 

have done nothing wrong, and in the process put the brakes on the 

revolutionary democratization of capital in this country that has occurred over the last 20 years or more. I hope that our goal, and 

I believe our goal should be to stop the abuse of stock options, not 

to stop the granting of stock options. I do not believe this proposed 

FASB rule will do that. 

Options are a very innovative way to help expand the winner’s 

circle for millions of Americans and improve the growth and productivity of our economy. In other words, we must not throw the 

options baby out with the corporate corruption bath water. I believe the way to make sure we do not do that is to reform the way 

stock options are approved and distributed and ultimately widen 

access to them instead of restricting it. I have introduced legislation which I believe will do that. 

As has been said, my views and interest in this subject go back 

more than a decade to 1993 when FASB first floated that plan to 

require stock options to be treated as an expense against earnings 

on profit and loss statements at the time they are granted. Many 

of us who opposed that rule change did so for two reasons. First 

14

we believed it did not make sense; it was bad accounting. Second, 

we were concerned that it would significantly deter the kind of entrepreneurship that grows our economy and expands the middle 

class. I do not think any of us were primarily motivated by a desire 

to compromise the independence of FASB, but if FASB is about to 

promulgate a rule that we think, and thought then, would have an 

adverse effect on a lot of people in our country and on our economy 

generally, I take it to be my responsibility to express that point of 

view. Our goal here again should be to stop the abuse of stock 

abuse, not their granting. 

Let me go back to 1993. Why did we do that? We were never convinced that there is an accurate way to value an option on the day 

it is granted. I know Warren Buffett has now famously said that 

options are compensation and therefore compensation should be expensed. Of course options are probably compensation. I emphasize 

the ‘‘probably.’’ They are a form of compensation, but the compensation occurs not when they are granted, but when they are exercised. At the extreme, options that go under water when the 

stock price drops below the price on the day that the options were 

granted never become compensation at all. They are effectively 

worthless, as tragically, thousands of Enron employees can tell you. 

We only know, as far as I understand this, options are compensation when they are exercised. I hope most people listening to this 

or watching it understand we are talking about two dates, the date 

the company says, OK, John Smith, you have got options, but then 

there is another day that comes, usually after a holding period required of some years, in which the options are actually exercised, 

they are sold. That is when they become compensation. 

Incidentally, that is when the company can take as a deduction 

the difference between the price of stock on the day the option was 

granted and the price when it was exercised or sold and money was 

made. The employee on the date of exercise pays a tax on the difference and the company takes it as a deduction. That is the IRS. 

What we are talking about is accounting rules on the day that it 

is granted, and I continue to see no way you can actually value on 

that day. 

I wonder if the advocates of expensing stock options could point 

to a single case where a company’s disclosure of stock option values 

and cost at the time of granting, which is what they have been required to do under the FASB compromise rule since 1995, has 

proved to be accurate. The Enron footnotes, for example, which I 

have looked at, estimated stock option values and costs that proved 

to be wildly inflated and inaccurate because they did not anticipate 

the collapse in Enron’s stock price that came about as a result of 

the corrupt behavior of some Enron executives. So that is what, in 

1993, we were not convinced of, that you could value an option on 

the day it was granted, but here is what we were convinced of, that 

mandatory expensing of stock options would inhibit their use, and 

that would hurt a lot of people who were getting stock options, not 

the top executives, and it would also hurt our economy because of 

the role that the options play in attracting innovative employees 

away from big companies to start-up companies. Experience has 

proven that options are an effective mechanism for doing that, and 

for spreading wealth, because they give employees a direct stake in 

15

their companies, and of course business leaders, particularly from 

the high tech community, made clear that they would issue fewer 

options if they had to subtract their estimated value from their 

profits on the statement as required. 

Much has changed since that original debate and vote here in the 

early 1990’s, but I say with all respect that the problems that I 

have with FASB’s approach have not changed. Requiring firms to 

predict the values of options at the time of granting still looks to 

me like bad accounting. I just do not know how you can do it, and 

I am still troubled that it would have damaging repercussions on 

our economy overall, on thousands of businesses or would-be startup businesses, and certainly on millions of workers who would otherwise get these options. 

To be specific, it would significantly reduce earnings for many 

companies with option plans, which in turn would reduce the value 

of their stock in particular, maybe the market in general, and business would almost certainly decide to grant fewer options. Of 

course, the first to be cut out would not be the top executives including the relatively small number among business executives in 

America who have been proven to have acted unethically or illegally in the recent wave of corporate crime. What would be hurt? 

The guys at the top and the women at the top would be cutting 

out the other workers in the company from the opportunity to have 

options, and that is the last thing we need now with the average 

income of American workers dropping. 

I will give you an interesting statistic, Mr. Chairman. Just 12 

years ago, around the time the first FASB debate occurred, a little 

bit before it, one million Americans owned stock options. Today 

more than 14 million people in this country hold stock options. It 

is astounding. And a growing number of companies, very diverse, 

like Staples, Intel, Wells Fargo and the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, to name a few that are diverse, offer broad-based plans that 

distribute most of the options to rank and file workers, not senior 

executives. 

Are there problems with options? Yes, there are. But again, I believe the FASB rule is very unlikely to solve them and will cause 

its own problems. Number one problem: Too high a percentage of 

options are still rewarded to high-level executives. The National 

Center for Employee Ownership estimates, ‘‘That while the growth 

of broad-based options has been an important economic trend, our 

data nonetheless indicate that even in plans that do share options 

widely, executives still get an average of 65 to 70 percent of the 

total options granted.’’ That is their right, but in my opinion, that 

is unfair, and it does contribute to the inequity in income distribution in our country. It is this skewed distribution, not the accounting, that I feel is the root of the problem. Obviously, we have seen 

examples where some executives, loaded up with tens of thousands 

of options, have engaged in the kinds of practices that have increased their earnings and their share price if cashed out at the 

right time, and then very often they have left the company. 

To counter these abuses, I have introduced what I believe is a 

better, tougher stock option reform proposal, and the purpose of my 

legislation, if you will allow me to put it this way, is to mend, not 

end, stock option distribution. 

16

1The prepared statement of Senator Enzi appears in the Appendix on page 73. 

First, my proposal will prohibit a company from deducting the 

cost of options when exercised if it does not offer the majority of 

those options to rank and file workers. I define that in the bill as 

those who make less than $90,000 a year, which is an existing 

standard, and are not among the firm’s top 20 percent of highestpaid employees. 

Second, my proposal would set a mandatory holding period for 

stock option grants and block top executives from selling their 

shares while they are employed by the company. 

Third, it would require all stock option plans to be approved by 

a majority of shareholders, guaranteeing greater accountability and 

transparency. 

I offer this, Mr. Chairman, as a tougher, more sweeping, and I 

believe ultimately more effective, response to stock option abuse 

and its consequences. Rather than retard the revolutionary democratization of capitalism in our country, this proposal will help accelerate it by putting more options and more wealth in the hands 

of more working Americans. That is a solution we can all count on, 

and I believe account for. Thank you very much. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Senator Lieberman, thank you. 

Now I would like to introduce our first two witnesses, Senator 

Enzi and Senator Boxer, and I understand Senator Enzi may have 

a scheduling conflict. 

Senator ENZI. I do not. 

Senator FITZGERALD. The normal tradition would be that Senator 

Boxer has seniority in the Senate, but she is——

Senator BOXER. Senator, that is very kind, but I think because 

Senator Enzi has a bill that I am very supportive of, I think it is 

just fine if he goes first, and I am happy to go after him. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you, Senator Boxer. Senator Enzi, I 

would just like to introduce you. 

Senator Enzi is the Senator from Wyoming, and was here to testify at our recent hearing on financial literacy. Senator Enzi was 

elected to the Senate in 1996, and he is an accountant and former 

small business owner. He serves on the Committee on Banking, 

Housing and Urban Affairs, where he chairs the Securities and Investment Subcommittee. 

Senator Enzi is the sponsor of S. 1890, the Stock Option Accounting Reform Act, which would require an issuer of registered securities to expense stock options granted to executive officers. 

Senator Enzi, thank you. Welcome back to our Subcommittee, 

and thanks for your patience as well. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. MIKE ENZI,1 A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE 

STATE OF WYOMING 

Senator ENZI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Akaka, and Subcommittee Members, for allowing me to testify before you today. 

I also want to thank Senator Boxer for all the work that she has 

done on the bill that we have, and all of the interest that she has 

shown and her knowledge in it. 

17

I would also like to associate myself with the remarks of Senator 

Bennett when he was talking about the independence of FASB, and 

the need to expense stock options. 

But having said that, I am here today to speak solely on behalf 

of the millions of small businesses in the United States that may 

or may not even be aware of the proposal by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to require expensing the stock options. I have 

to tell you, a reporter from Wyoming today at lunch asked me if 

I thought my bill would pass. I said, if FASB listens once, it will 

not have to pass, and if they do not listen, it could be a landslide 

to pass it. So that is the position that I am coming from. 

There are small businesses in the United States that number 

nearly 23 million, and they represent 99 and 7/10ths percent of the 

employers. They employ half of all private sector employees and 

they generate 60 percent of the net new jobs annually. In addition, 

small businesses produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee 

than large patenting firms. It is not an exaggeration to state that 

the health and strength of our Nation’s economy rests on the ability of small businesses, small businesses, to start and grow. Our 

Nation’s entrepreneurial spirit and climate are the envy of the 

world. Today many countries are trying to replicate our small business system. In fact, news articles of late last year showed that 

China is trying to build its own Silicon Valley. You know what 

their business plan calls for? Stock options. Yes. We must be very 

careful not to cause unintended consequences that might disrupt 

small business and the job creation. 

The reason I am here today is to voice small business concerns 

that I believe are being overlooked or pushed aside as not relevant 

to the discussion of stock option expensing. At first glance, the 

question of whether to expense stock options appears to be very 

simple and media friendly. However, before getting to the question 

of expensing stock options, one must first ask how those will be 

valued? 

As the traditional saying goes, the devil is in the details. Based 

upon the recent proposal by FASB one must be versed in the differences between the fair value method, intrinsic value method, lattice structures, and binomial and Black-Scholes expensing valuation models. As an accountant, I found that these terms are not 

in the general accounting world but are unique to this particular 

accounting proposal. So for small business owners and their accountants that are encountering these terms for the first time, the 

evaluation of the FASB proposal will be daunting. 

The valuation approach, as proposed by FASB, would set up 

small businesses to wake up in a nightmare. The proposal itself is 

more than 230 pages long. This is the little document that small 

businessmen need to wade through to be sure they are not violating the accounting standard. Rather than addressing small business concerns head on, FASB has just thrown together a series of 

criteria for small business to consider. 

Small businesses have no choice but to hire expensive experts to 

delve into this voodoo valuation. Some believe that only the largest 

accounting firms would be able to produce the proper valuation 

models, and I am hearing that it could cost up to $500,000. Both 

small business and small accountants would be victims of the 

18

1The letter to Mr. Herz from Mr. Enzi, dated December 5, 2003, appears in the Appendix on 

page 148. 

FASB proposal. A frequent concern heard by the Governmental Affairs Committee is that small business owners are very busy building and running their businesses, and cannot pay attention to 

many Federal regulators in Washington, DC—I know you have 

heard that a lot—for this sole reason: Congress created the Regulatory Flexibility and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement 

Fairness Acts. These Administrative Procedure Act laws require 

Federal regulatory agencies to undertake economic analysis when 

a proposed regulation may disproportionately burden small entities. In addition, the law requires agencies to conduct vigorous outreach and establish compliance assistance for small business. 

FASB, as an independent standard setter, is not bound by the 

Regulatory Flexibility nor the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement and Fairness Acts. Accordingly, FASB, as a standard setter 

recognized by the Federal Government, should establish equivalent 

small business review practices for itself. 

In November, I held a hearing in the Committee on Banking, 

Housing, Urban Development entitled ‘‘FASB and Small Business 

Growth.’’ At that hearing we heard from a variety of witnesses that 

FASB’s consideration of small business concerns on several different FASB proposals, not just stock options, several different 

FASB proposals, was severely deficient. 

At the hearing I requested that a Small Business Advisory Committee be established by FASB to listen and address small business 

concerns. I envision this Subcommittee to operate in the same 

manner as NASD’s Small Firm Advisory Board, in that all proposals would be reviewed and evaluated by the Subcommittee. I 

even wrote a letter to Mr. Herz and asked if that was not the case.1

I did not get a response that said that that was not the case. But 

FASB has since indicated to me that the Small Business Advisory 

Committee would meet twice a year and would receive only proposals on an ad hoc basis. 

While I am pleased that FASB has established the committee, I 

still have serious doubts about FASB’s commitment to listening on 

the small business issues. For example, immediately following the 

hearing, FASB conducted field tests with 18 businesses on stock 

option expensing. None of the businesses were small businesses. 

Now, as FASB is rushing to implement the proposal on stock option expensing by the end of the year, I am very much concerned 

that small business issues will be pushed aside or not addressed 

at all. For example, the proposal will apply not only to publicly 

traded companies, but also to privately held companies. Many of 

these privately held companies are start-ups and very small companies, and many that I have spoken to recently have no idea that 

this proposal will apply to them. 

In addition, FASB, without advanced warning, extended the proposal to include companies with employee stock purchase plans. 

Have you been talking about stock options or employee stock purchase plans? That is the smallest business thing that I know of 

where the mom and pop operation is trying to sell to their employees. They are going to have to pay attention to that now because 

19

they have been included. We did not know about that. It was a surprise to me when I looked through there and found that. While 

some of the companies will be able to participate in the two 

roundtables to be held by FASB in Connecticut and California, 

thousands of others may not find out about the roundtables until 

it is too late. 

In addition, the first meeting of the Small Business Advisory 

Committee is on May 11. However, an issue as complex as this 

may not be addressed fully. It is quite possible that the committee 

could spend all day on the proposal’s glossary of terms in this 230-

page book, and have very little time to discuss anything else. 

For this reason, a hearing has been scheduled next week by the 

Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship that will give 

a limited number of small businesses a chance to discuss the proposal on stock option expensing. 

As the Governmental Affairs Committee has jurisdiction over 

Regulatory Flexibility and Small Business Regulatory Enforcement 

Acts, I will leave the Subcommittee with a couple of questions that 

should be considered in this hearing. 

First: What are the duties and responsibilities of a standard setter, recognized by the Federal Government for analyzing the economic impact of proposals? Should those duties and responsibilities 

rise to the level of statutory mandates of Federal agencies? 

Second: What is the level of outreach that is required to ensure 

that small businesses throughout the country are able to participate in the standard-setting process? 

Third: What is the remedy for when a small business believes 

that the independent standard setter gets the standard wrong for 

small business, or that the standard setter has completely pushed 

aside small business concerns? Small businesses, pursuant to the 

Regulatory Flexibility Act, may sue a Federal agency to set aside 

a rule if the small business has been unjustly aggrieved. As one of 

the principal authors of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, I support an independent accounting standard setter. However, an independent accounting standard setter has to live up to a very high standard. 

With respect to FASB’s oversight of small business concerns, I believe there is still a significant way to go. 

Finally, I should mention that in today’s Wall Street Journal

there is an account of Chairman Herz conducing a conference call 

with institutional investors yesterday. In that call he urges institutional investors to make your views known to the people in Washington so that FASB can go forward with its proposal by the end 

of the year. 

I thought we were in a period of comment when FASB should be 

encouraging everybody, and particularly small business, particularly the small businesses that do not even know they are about 

to have this thrust on them, to be commenting on the rule, not to 

be lobbying Congress not to be interested in this rule. I am really 

disappointed in that. That is further evidence that Chairman Herz 

will bypass the due process for small businesses in order to impose 

his will upon process. I have been trying to get some recognition 

of small business since this first came up, and having a little difficulty with it. 

20

1The article from the Wall Street Journal entitled ‘‘FASB Chairman Calls For Investors To 

Speak Up On Options,’’ appears in the Appendix on page 150. 2The study entitled ‘‘Corporate Governance, Executive Compensation, and Strategic Human 

Resource Management From 1992–2002, A Portrait Of What Took Place,’’ by Professors Joseph 

Blasi and Douglas Kruse appears in the Appendix on page 212. 3The prepared statement of Senator Boxer appears in the Appendix on page 77. 

I do have an article that I would like to have made part of the 

record that covers that conference call.1

Senator FITZGERALD. Without objection. 

Senator ENZI. Interestingly, Chairman Herz’s call was with institutional investors, and recent news articles have shown that institutional investors, including public pension funds, readily invest in 

hedge funds. I find it extremely troubling that institutional and 

pension fund managers will invest in unregulated hedge funds, but 

cannot interpret stock option information that is currently available in extremely detailed notes of registered, publicly traded companies. 

In addition, I also would like to introduce a very recent study on 

the use of stock options into the record, and that is the study of 

Professors Joseph Blasi and Douglas Kruse.2 They found that stock 

options are widely held by true workers and middle management 

of many companies and not just used by executives. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Without objection. 

Senator ENZI. I would mention that to give you something a little 

more current than the 1934 book, that they have also written a 

book called ‘‘In The Company of Owners: The Truth About Stock 

Options,’’ which I highly recommend to everybody to understand 

how this revolution to stock options has resulted in the kind of an 

economy that we have come to expect in the United States and the 

value that has had. 

It is a matter of executive compensation. A recent article in the 

Washington Post detailed that with or without stock options, top 

executives will receive their compensation. Therefore, this proposal 

will hurt only small businesses and employees. 

I thank you for this opportunity to testify. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Senator Enzi, we appreciate your being 

here today. Thank you very much. 

Senator Boxer, thank you for waiting patiently. 

Senator BOXER. Mr. Chairman, you want me to try to do my testimony in 5 minutes; would that be your desire? I will try that. 

Senator FITZGERALD. We will not strictly enforce that, but we 

would appreciate it because we have two other panels coming. 

Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. I am going to try to do that. So first I will start 

off with putting my statement in the record, if that is OK with you. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Without objection. 

Senator BOXER. Then I will try to summarize this within 5 minutes or a minute over. 

Senator FITZGERALD. That is great. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. BARBARA BOXER,3 A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator BOXER. First of all, thank you so much for this chance 

because this is a big issue to California, and I have been involved 

with it for a long time with Senator Enzi, going before that, SenVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
21

ator Lieberman, when I was a House member and I just came over 

to the Senate, Senator Allen, just a whole group of us from both 

sides of the aisle, and I just appreciate this chance. 

What I would like to do is first of all comment on the various 

presentations each of you has made, first of all, to rebut them in 

some cases or to support them in others, but second, to prove to 

you that I was listening to you, that I was hanging on every word. 

I would start off with you, Mr. Chairman, kind of bemoaning the 

fact that the lobbyists did not come up here. Lobbyists should not 

be testifying in these meetings. I really believe that because there 

are lobbyists on both sides of every issue. They get paid for that 

and it is our job to ferret out what is in the best interest of the 

people, and it is our job to come up here and not their job. It would 

be awful, so I am sort of glad that did not happen. 

Second, to Senator Bennett’s point, I think he makes—he is 

struggling with this deal because he believes in the independence 

of FASB, but yet he believes what I believe, and that is, that a onesize-fits-all kind of rule could have tremendous ramifications. I am 

the daughter of a CPA. I love accountants, so this is nothing 

against the accounting profession, but they do have blinders on 

when it comes to policy. That is their work. It is their job. They 

see things in a narrow fashion, and policy is not their thing. That 

is fine for a lot of things, but when you are dealing with options, 

when you are dealing with the potential ramifications here which 

have been stated by Senators Bennett and Lieberman, you are 

dealing with serious business, and of course, very eloquently stated 

by my colleague. 

I would agree that I do not think FASB has listened to us one 

bit. We gave them every chance. We had a hearing. Remember that 

one? What would you call it? A seminar. And we said, well, look, 

this does not make sense, and we went through how do you evaluate these and so on and so on. And then they just could not care. 

For those of you who wanted them to stick with what they came 

up with 10 years ago, do not worry, there is not a chance they will 

change to try to reach out and look at some of the ramifications of 

what they are doing. It is very discouraging. For me to be told, as 

a U.S. Senator who cares about jobs and cares about a middle class 

and cares about making sure there is prosperity, that I should not 

speak up against a group that I think is not considering the ramifications of their act, that is not a good approach with me because 

I think that is our job. Otherwise, things could go haywire around 

here, and they sometimes do. 

To Senator Akaka, who mentioned Enron and WorldCom and 

Senator Levin who did the same, these were crooks and thieves, 

these people. They made a false electricity crisis in my State, 

Enron did. I am familiar with what they did. They spent day and 

night trying to thieve from people, and they did, to the extent of 

$11 billion that I know of. That is what it cost my consumers in 

Enron’s case. And options are not—they should be thrown I jail. 

Meanwhile, what is happening, because of their acts and because 

some people think options was the problem, not the fact that they 

were thieves, then what you are saying is not only the people there 

are at a disadvantage because they lost their jobs, they lost their 

pension, they lost everything, but as a result of FASB, we are going 

22

to have a whole group of other workers, who had nothing to do 

with these things, being punished. That would be just the ultimate 

irony, being punished for the likes of Enron and WorldCom when 

all they want to do is get a chance at the dream. 

So I hope you will think about that. After FASB gets done with 

their rule, the people at the top are going to get their options. 

Make no mistake about it. But the people that I fight for in my 

State, and Cisco Systems is a perfect case in point, I believe it is 

95 percent of the employees there have options. So now you think 

you are doing this great thing to punish the fat cats, and you are 

hurting everybody else because the fat cats will still keep getting 

their options. 

Let me just, because I do not want to take too much of your time, 

I want to give you a sample of what some of my constituents are 

saying, maybe the ones that voices have not been raised yet, although they have been alluded to. Bill Griffin, who works for Auto 

Desk in Palo Alto, wrote to the FASB, ‘‘Stock options are the last 

bastion of the hard-working middle manager. For 2 years the only 

thing that helped me pay for my two kids in college has been stock 

options. Without stock options mortgaging my home would have 

been my only option.’’

David Dorr from San Jose wrote to the FASB, ‘‘In my opinion, 

stock option compensation at Silicon Valley companies is what 

helped form this valley in the first place. Do not destroy it because 

some companies abused it by only giving options to the top.’’

Listen to what Kelly Simmons wrote to the FASB. Quote, ‘‘If you 

eliminate broad-based employee stock options from hard-working 

individuals like me, you are taking away more than you think. You 

are taking away the dream of someday owning a home here in the 

Silicon Valley.’’

So FASB got lots of these letters, but they listened to them just 

as much as they listened to Senator Enzi and I, and Senator 

Lieberman and others. So I have respect and admiration for FASB, 

but I do not want to put the future of our economic expansion in 

the hands of folks who refuse to look up from their eyeshades and 

see the big picture, and the big picture has an impact on hardworking people, on shareholders and people who are only just doing 

the right thing every single day. 

Last, we have a great alternative. And by the way, I love Senator 

Lieberman’s bill. I am going to look at it and hopefully go on it, 

but we have a great bill. Senator Ensign and I have worked with 

Senators Enzi and Reid, and others on legislation that would mandate the expensing of stock options for the top five executives at 

a company, but not for the options granted to rank and file workers. Start-up companies would be exempt. Let me just stop here. 

It just seems like everybody is frozen into their position except 

for Senator Bennett, who still looks like we can grab him, one side 

or the other. I just hope you will think a little bit about some of 

your premises, those of you who are just saying no legislation interfere. If it was a small matter, that would be one thing. This is a 

huge matter. It is going to impact the lives of real people who really believe, and have told me—and a lot of them are women, by the 

way, I have to tell you—who are telling me this is their only shot 

at the dream, and let us not take that away because of some rule 

23

1The prepared statement of Mr. Herz appears in the Appendix on page 80. 

that we do not want to interfere with some group of folks who are 

dedicated, and I respect them, but that is not their job to worry 

about policy. It is our job. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Senator Boxer, Senator Enzi, thank you 

very much. We appreciate your being here and appreciate your interest in the subject. Thank you so much for coming. 

At this point we would like to invite our second panel to the witness table. We have two witnesses on our second panel. Our first 

witness on this panel is Robert H. Herz, who was appointed Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board effective July 1, 

2002. Prior to joining FASB, Mr. Herz served as PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ North America Theater Leader of Professional, Technical Risk and Quality, and he was also a member of the firm’s 

board. Mr. Herz has served as a part-time member of the International Accounting Standards Board, and has chaired the SEC 

Regulations Committee of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Trans-National Auditors Committee of the 

International Federation of Accountants. Mr. Herz has also served 

as a member of the FASB Financial Instruments Task Force and 

the American Accounting Association’s Financial Accounting Standards Committee. 

Our second witness is the Hon. Paul A. Volcker, the former 

Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, and the current 

Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Committee 

Foundation. Mr. Volcker has nearly 30 years of distinguished service with the Federal Government, and served two terms as the 

Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System 

from 1979 to 1987. More recently, Mr. Volcker served as Chairman 

and CEO of Wolfensohn and Company, from which he retired in 

1996 upon its merger with the Bankers Trust Company. Mr. 

Volcker currently serves as chairman, director of, or consultant to, 

a number of corporations and nonprofit organizations. 

Gentlemen, we deeply appreciate your taking the time to appear 

before this Subcommittee and we would like to invite you to offer 

your full written statements into the record. We can simply have 

them accepted as part of the record, and it would help if you could 

attempt to summarize your comments within 5 minutes, so that we 

can then proceed with questioning. Thank you. 

Mr. Herz, would you please go first? 

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT H. HERZ,1 CHAIRMAN, FINANCIAL 

ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD 

Mr. HERZ. Thank you, Chairman Fitzgerald, Ranking Member 

Akaka, and Members of the Subcommittee. 

Mr. HERZ. As you know, the FASB is an independent private sector organization. Our ability to conduct our work in a systematic, 

thorough, and unbiased manner is fundamental to achieving our 

role in the system—that is, to establish and improve standards of 

financial accounting and reporting for both public and private enterprises, including small businesses. 

24

The FASB’s independence, the importance of which was recently 

reaffirmed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, is also fundamental to our 

mission because our work is technical in nature and designed to 

provide preparers with the guidance necessary to report on their 

underlying business transactions. 

Now, while the current efforts by certain parties to block our proposed improvements to the accounting for equity-based compensation may seem attractive to some in the short run, in the long run 

biased accounting standards are harmful to investors, to creditors, 

to the capital markets, and to the U.S. economy. 

Because the actions of the FASB affect so many organizations, 

our decisionmaking process must be open, it must be thorough, and 

it must be objective, as objective as possible. And so our rules of 

procedure require a very extensive and public due process. 

On March 31, as has been noted, we issued a proposal for public 

comment to improve the accounting for equity-based compensation. 

It covers not just stock options but a whole variety of equity-based 

compensation arrangements because we wanted to get consistent 

accounting and a level playing field between the various forms of 

equity-based compensation, as well as with other compensation. 

The proposal was a result of a very extensive public due propose 

that began in November 2002. That process included the issuance 

of a preliminary document for public comment, the review of over 

300 comment letters and over 130 unsolicited letters, consultations 

with our advisory councils, field visits to companies—which, by the 

way, did include small businesses—public and private discussions 

with hundreds of individuals, including users, auditors, and preparers of financial reports, valuation experts, compensation experts, and active, open deliberations at 38 public FASB Board 

meetings. 

The Board believes that our proposal will significantly improve 

the financial reporting for equity-based compensation transactions 

in many ways, including, as has been the main topic of discussion, 

the elimination of the existing exception for so-called fixed plan employee stock options, which, as Senator Levin remarked, are the 

only form of equity-based compensation that is not currently required to be recorded as an expense in the financial statements. 

Our proposal reflects the view that all forms of equity-based compensation should be properly accounted for as such, and that the 

existing exception for fixed plan employee stock options results in 

reporting that ignores the economic substance of those transactions. 

In that regard, I would note that when enterprises use stock 

options and other instruments, like long-dated stock purchase warrants, for purposes other than compensating employees—for example, to acquire goods and services, as you mentioned, Chairman 

Fitzgerald, to pay for legal services and the like—they have long 

been required to value those instruments and to properly account 

for them in the financial statements. 

We believe the elimination of the fixed plan stock option exception is also responsive to the demands and concerns expressed by 

numerous hundreds of individual and institutional investors, pension funds, creditors, financial analysts, the major accounting 

firms, and many other parties. We also believe it will provide 

25

greater transparency and consistency in the reporting of various 

forms of equity-based compensation and greater comparability between enterprises that compensate their employees in different 

ways and between the now nearly 500 companies that have voluntarily chosen to account for the cost of employee stock options and 

the many others that continue not to do so. 

The proposal also has a secondary benefit—an important one, I 

believe—of achieving much greater international comparability in 

the area of accounting for equity-based compensation. In that regard, as noted, our international counterpart, the International Accounting Standards Board, issued a final standard in February of 

this year requiring the expensing of all equity-based compensation, 

including all forms of stock options. The IASB standard will be followed by companies in over 90 countries beginning next year. 

Our proposal includes a lengthy Notice for Recipients that highlights and describes over 20 specific issues that respondents may 

wish to consider in developing their comments to us, including a 

number of issues that focus on the proposal’s measurement approach and on the special provisions that we have proposed relating to small business. 

The Board also plans to hold public roundtables, four of them, 

with interested users, auditors, and preparers of financial reports, 

and valuation and compensation experts to discuss the issues 

raised by the proposal. We also will be discussing the impact on 

small businesses and their views at the inaugural meeting of our 

Small Business Advisory Committee in a couple of weeks. 

Following the end of the comment period on June 30, we plan to 

redeliberate, at public meetings, the issues raised in response to 

our proposals. Those redeliberations will address all the key conceptual, measurement, disclosure, and cost/benefit issues raised in 

the comments and will include careful consideration of the input 

received from all parties. 

Only after carefully evaluating that input at public meetings will 

the Board consider whether to issue a final standard. Our current 

plan is to complete the redeliberations and be in a position to issue 

the final standard in the fourth quarter of this year. 

I would like to conclude my statement by noting that we have 

all witnessed the devastating effects and loss of investor confidence 

in financial information that have resulted, at least in part, from 

companies intentionally violating or manipulating accounting requirements. Investors, creditors, and other consumers of financial 

reports are continuing to demand improvements in accounting and 

financial reporting. The existing accounting for equity-based compensation, not just as regards CEO compensation but the basic 

flaw in the accounting model, has been an area of great concern, 

and our proposal is intended to be responsive to that concern and 

to what we have seen in our extensive process of looking at the economic attributes of those instruments. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. After Chairman Volcker talks, I 

would be happy to respond to any questions. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you very much, Mr. Herz. 

Mr. Volcker, thank you for being with us. You may proceed. 

26

1The prepared statement of Mr. Volcker appears in the Appendix on page 86. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. PAUL A. VOLCKER,1 CHAIRMAN, INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS COMMITTEE FOUNDATION, AND FORMER CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF GOVERNORS, 

FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM 

Mr. VOLCKER. Well, thank you. I will just summarize my comments briefly, but let me make two preliminary statements after 

listening to the earlier conversation. 

Expensing stock options is not about eliminating stock options. 

The question is how to account for them properly. And to the extent that stock options have been abused—and I have no doubt 

they have been abused in many cases to the extent that that abuse 

is related to the fact they are not accounted for, obviously that 

should be taken care of. That is in favor of expensing stock options. 

And nobody is saying in the accounting world that they must be 

eliminated. All we are saying is account for an expense in ways 

comparable to other expenses. 

The other point I would make is that small business has a problem in many elaborate accounting areas. They have gotten extremely complex for big businesses, I am afraid. That is a problem, 

and in my responsibilities with the International Accounting 

Standards Committee Foundation—a cumbersome word—we are 

reviewing our procedures now to try to make sure that small businesses and their views and problems are sufficiently taken care of 

in determining accounting standards. 

I am the Chairman of the Trustees of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation. I emphasize that because 

our responsibilities are to appoint members of the board that make 

the decisions, not to make the decisions itself, but it is also our responsibility to satisfy ourselves that there has been sufficient consultation and due process before the board we appoint does arrive 

at conclusions. 

I have been interested in this. The only reason that I have 

agreed to become Chairman of the Foundation is that I think commonality in international accounting standards is a good thing. The 

world is globalizing. We are not going to stop that. The financial 

world is globalizing. If we are going to have an efficient system of 

international capital, you better have a common set of accounting 

standards. And, in part, that is what is at issue in this debate. 

As Mr. Herz just mentioned, the International Board has decided 

a standard on expensing stock options. That is somewhat controversial in other areas of the world, but not to the extent it is 

here. I have every reason to believe the Europeans will adopt that 

standard and it will become compulsory in Europe and most other 

major countries in the next year. 

Now, oddly enough, or maybe interestingly enough, there is another accounting standard that the International Board has put out 

that is extremely controversial in Europe, and it is not been yet 

adopted by the European Union, and there is intense political pressure in the European Union to reject that standard, so-called IAS 

39, which involves, importantly, accounting for derivatives. In the 

European world, derivatives are not accounted for, and this standard is an important initiative to bring that important area of acVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
27

counting on the books. It is not controversial in the United States 

because the standard already exists in the United States. It was 

controversial when it was applied in the United States some years 

ago, but American companies are now used to it, and I don’t think 

anybody is suggesting that the United States should abandon that 

standard. 

Now, I point this out because we have political pressures on the 

standard setters, two different standards from different directions. 

And I think you have to ask yourself what are the prospects for finally achieving coherent, consistent, high-quality international 

standards if the political authorities, whenever they find one they 

don’t like, reject it. And that will obviously have a kind of snowballing effect. You will lose discipline in maintaining independence 

if in different cases considered important the independence is overcome. 

I am sensitive to that, and in Sarbanes-Oxley, and in all my conversations with the SEC and up here on the Hill when I agreed to 

this assignment, I kept getting drilled into me: You must be independent, you must have a framework that protects these decisions 

from political ‘‘interference.’’ That is the way our system is set up. 

The so-called constitution for the International Board is set up with 

elaborate arrangements to protect the independence. That is supposed to be part of my responsibility to protect that independence. 

So I feel rather strongly about it. 

I think that is the essence of my statement. I don’t comment on 

the substance of the rule. I am not supposed to. That is the Board’s 

idea. I am supposed to respect their independence. But I do think 

this is very important in terms of the overall objective of getting 

international consistency. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Mr. Volcker, thank you very much for that 

statement. I appreciate both of you being here. 

I would just like to make a couple of statements in the way of 

response to some of the things other Members have mentioned in 

their opening remarks, or the two Senators who were testifying. 

First of all, the book ‘‘Security Analysis’’ is still in print. I just 

happen to have the original edition because I wanted to buy that. 

You can still buy the original edition, but it has been republished 

and updated many times. It is one of the classic all-time books, and 

Benjamin Graham was updating it almost to when he died in the 

1970’s. Warren Buffett refers to Benjamin Graham’s book, ‘‘The Intelligent Investor,’’ which I have also read, as the single best book 

on investing ever. And almost all of his books, as far as I know, 

are still in print and selling widely. It is just that I only have the 

classic edition on my home bookshelf, and that is why I cite it. 

There may well be some better language that I could have referred 

to in more recent editions. 

Also, I do, of course, recognize that the options that are traded 

on the Chicago Board Options Exchange or other exchanges are 

much different. However, they are similar in that they both represent a call on the future growth and profitability of the company. 

And so I just wanted to mention that, and certainly many options 

issued to employees or executives of a company may not be transferable by that employee or executive. 

28

I now have a few questions for Mr. Herz and Mr. Volcker. Mr. 

Herz, how many of the seven FASB Board members supported the 

issuance of this proposal? And how many of the seven Board members disagreed with the conclusions contained in the proposal? 

Mr. HERZ. The proposal was voted out as a proposal unanimously 

by all seven Board members. 

Senator FITZGERALD. So there was not a single member of your 

expert Accounting Board who opposed the issuance of the proposal? 

Mr. HERZ. That is correct. It was unanimous. Now, we all may 

have slightly different views on particular issues, minor differences. But you look at the proposal as a whole, its consistency, 

and decide whether or not to vote for it as a whole. And all seven 

Board members voted for that. 

Senator FITZGERALD. And how are the FASB Board members 

chosen? Who chooses them? And how do you get on that Board? 

Mr. HERZ. They are selected by a group of trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation. They are selected from diverse backgrounds. Right now we have three people from public accounting, 

two from industry, one was a senior global equity analyst, another 

person with a business background. 

Senator FITZGERALD. So you have two from industry. 

Mr. HERZ. Yes. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Who aren’t necessarily accountants? Or are 

they? 

Mr. HERZ. They were CFO types. 

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. 

Mr. HERZ. What we call preparers. 

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. So they are from companies that may 

be issuing options themselves. 

Mr. HERZ. Yes. In fact, actually two of our Board members have 

been the recipients of options. 

Senator FITZGERALD. And, nonetheless, they supported the expensing of stock options. 

Mr. HERZ. Oh, yes. 

Senator FITZGERALD. So of the seven Board members, you have 

two who are from public companies. How many of the Board members are CPAs, accounting professionals? 

Mr. HERZ. Three. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Three. And then you have two other members? 

Mr. HERZ. A business school professor, and a person from Wall 

Street who was a senior global equity analyst. 

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. So, it is fair to say that all of these 

people have great expertise. If you are a CPA, a CFO of a publicly 

traded company, a business school professor, or a respected Wall 

Street analyst, you are very sophisticated in this area. 

Mr. HERZ. I think it is interesting to note that the International 

Board, who separately deliberated this whole issue, they have 14 

people on their Board from nine different countries, and, again, a 

range of backgrounds in terms of preparers, auditors, users of financial information. I believe they were also 14–0. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Maybe Mr. Volcker could comment on the 

composition of the International Accounting Standards Board. You 

have 14 people? 

29

Mr. VOLCKER. Fourteen people, two of whom are part-time. But 

as I look at them here, I think there are four who are basically socalled preparers, chief financial officers; and four or five accountants or standard setters from other countries, past standard setters 

from other countries; and three of them are so-called users, analysts, with an analyst background. One professor. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Now both of you just generally, leaving 

aside the merits of the proposed rule—and you saw I am in favor 

of the proposed rule. Some of my other colleagues are also in favor 

of it; others are opposed to it. 

Leaving aside the merits of the proposal, what effect do you 

think it would have on our domestic Financial Accounting Standards Board if politicians were to step in, a political authority were 

to step in, and block the new FASB rule? And I think Mr. Volcker 

indicated in his opening remarks the likely effects on the international board if they were to see us in Congress step in. For a rule 

that actually isn’t that controversial in Europe, it would have ramifications to the extent that some European companies which are 

opposed to a new rule on derivatives accounting that has already 

been widely accepted in the United States would possibly object to. 

But what would be the effect of political interference in either of 

your boards? 

Mr. HERZ. Well, I think, as I said, there are a number of issues 

coming down the pike, major topics, where users of financial information believe that the current accounting standards are not as 

good as they might be, and even in some cases really need major 

revision. And some of those are areas like revenue recognition and 

reporting on financial performance, but also pension accounting 

has been severely criticized by a number of people, lease accounting. 

I think that any intervention at this point would kind of be a signal down the road that anytime you want to block something to 

maintain the status quo and block the proposed standard, go to 

Washington and lobby through the political process. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Would you care to comment on that, Mr. 

Volcker? 

Mr. VOLCKER. Well, I think if I was a member of FASB, I would 

be wondering what my responsibilities were. I know that in choosing the International Board and getting the kind of quality of people that we thought we got, what was important to them was that 

they had some independence. And if they lost that sense of independence and acceptability of their decisions, they would not be interested in serving. And I don’t know who you would get to go on 

the Board. You are not going to get the kind of people that we got. 

I think that is simply the fact of the matter. 

But I must say, I think there is a balance here which, one way 

or another, much of what has been said both on that side of the 

table and here is relevant. These decisions cannot be made in a 

vacuum. They cannot be made by a group of abstract accountants 

kind of figuring out what they think of the theoretical niceties of 

an accounting rule and ending up with 260 pages sometimes. They 

have to be exposed to the real world. And in a sense, I think that 

is my job and our counterpart’s job in the United States to make 

sure that the Boards do have the kind of consultation that Mr. 

30

Herz was talking about and take it seriously and do testing and 

checking of their proposals. 

I should not be speaking as an old Federal Reserve Chairman—

but it is easy to get isolated. We have to keep—in a way that is 

impossible to avoid for the Federal Reserve because you haul them 

up all the time—and you have these kinds of debates and criticism 

and comments. And I think that is an important part of the process. 

We happen to be reviewing the so-called constitution of the International Commitment now, and that is the main comment we have 

had, and that is the main concern that we have in reviewing the 

constitution, that there be ample and suitable consultation and 

testing. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Yes, Mr. Herz? 

Mr. HERZ. I couldn’t help pass that by when Paul mentioned the 

260 pages and Senator Enzi the 230 pages. The actual proposed 

standard is eight or nine pages. The rest of the document is explaining our thoughts, rationale, alternatives we looked at and 

then lots and lots of different examples to help people. So, the 

whole thing of helpful guidance and explanation of our thought 

process is 230 pages, but the actual standard is very short. 

Senator FITZGERALD. It is eight pages, OK. 

Now, just one final question before I hand it over to my colleagues. Both Senator Boxer and Senator Enzi talked a lot about 

the effect on companies, small businesses. They raised the specter 

of employees being denied stock options. And I know Senator 

Lieberman talked about the democratization of company ownership 

via widespread distribution of stock options. 

But neither Senator Boxer nor Senator Enzi, at least the way I 

understood them, seemed to mention the effect on shareholders or 

investors. That is something I referred to in my opening statement, 

that by granting stock options, you are taking the existing common 

shareholder’s right to own 100 percent of the up side of a company, 

and you are transferring it to someone else. And that is OK, I said, 

as long as it is disclosed to the shareholders or prospective investors, that they know that somebody else has a claim on these future growth prospects of the company and the stock. 

But isn’t there a problem with so many Americans owning stocks 

today? Just in mutual funds alone you have 95 million Americans 

who own mutual funds, for example. Either directly or indirectly 

today, well over half of Americans own equity securities. And many 

people are investing on their own without any professional advice 

and, I would venture to say, many without the ability to recognize 

the dilutive effect of options that have been issued because they are 

so buried. 

Was that at all a part of the thinking of the Financial Accounting 

Standards Board? Were you worried about that effect on shareholders of the dilution? 

Mr. HERZ. Well, we are trying to measure the instrument that 

is granted as a cost to the company, and it is a cost to the company, and that cost is represented by exactly what you say. And 

it is measurable. It is measurable with well-established models. It 

takes a little bit of work to do it in some cases, particularly when 

they are more complicated. But that is exactly the point, that there 

31

is a cost to the company, and that cost to the company should be 

measured just like any other cost to the company. 

Senator FITZGERALD. And if employees are paid in cash or in gold 

bullion, you require them to expense that. But it didn’t seem logical 

if they are paid in stock options, because they don’t have to reflect 

the cost? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes, that is right. And just to get to—I would love to 

visit with Senators Bennett and Lieberman just to explain——

Senator FITZGERALD. We would be happy to give you that opportunity. 

Mr. HERZ [continuing]. How the measurement works and why 

they have been able to do it for 8 years, in audited footnotes, why 

many companies are now being able to do it, and why there are 

other very long dated type instruments like convertible bonds 

which may be contingently exerciseable. Those are valued every 

day. 

The other point I would make, which is, I think, a point that 

when we discuss this people say well, gee, it didn’t turn out to be 

the right value. Well, we are measuring the value at a point in 

time. We are not predicting the future value of that instrument. 

Just as if you award a share of stock today, that is not predicting 

what it will be worth 5 years from now. It is the value of the instrument now. That is what is being valued, not the future prediction of its value. 

Senator FITZGERALD. And there is a present claim or call on the 

future growth of the company’s prospects that is being——

Mr. HERZ. That is exactly what the model is. 

Mr. VOLCKER. And it does take account of the vesting. 

Mr. HERZ. The vesting also, if you don’t vest, there is no expense. 

There are adjustments in our proposal for vesting, for non-transferability, for restrictions and all the like. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Senator Akaka. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Volcker, there are some opponents of the FASB proposal who argue that expensing stock options would slow job creation and potentially increase the use of outsourcing. What is your 

evaluation of these arguments? 

Mr. VOLCKER. They are not correct. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Mr. Herz, accounting rules have long required companies to estimate and report as an expense the cost for remediating environmental contamination, providing pension and post-retirement benefits to employees, settling product liability claims and litigation, 

and providing warranty coverage on products sold to consumers. 

The question is: Will the proposed measurement approach for employee stock options result in a more precise measurement than approaches currently used for those other costs and can you give me 

the reasons why? 

Mr. HERZ. Well, you are touching on a key aspect of what we 

considered: Is there sufficient reliability in our view behind these 

measures? And by that, we mean that the range of dispersion of 

the likely outcomes, if it is done correctly, is within acceptable limits. And we then thought about that and compared it with some of 

these other measurements that you are talking about and some 

32

that I think Chairman Fitzgerald talked about, loan loss reserves, 

insurance reserves, impairments of good will, sometimes just depreciation calculations because they involve estimates of life and salvage value. And we think that certainly the established models 

here—and, by the way, people say that you didn’t choose a model. 

Well, they are just different parts, variations of the same financial 

economic theorem. They are not different models. One is more flexible or open than the other. You can put more inputs in it and get 

a more refined answer. But our basic conclusion is that these measures are of sufficient reliability to put in the financial statements 

and are far better than the current situation where the current accounting is totally unreliable and completely ignores an economic 

transaction. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Volcker, what lessons regarding the use and 

accounting for stock options should be learned from the failures in 

corporate governance by companies such as Enron and WorldCom? 

Mr. VOLCKER. Well, my view is—and it has already been expressed in this hearing earlier—that I really do think stock options 

have been abused, and too much concentrated on relatively few officials at the top, and the incentives that have been created have 

been perverse. It has created a kind of concentration on the stock 

price that has led to manipulation of earnings and other manipulation in order to affect the stock price at the long-run expense of the 

company itself. And we have seen that demonstrated. It is very 

hard for me to justify the use of an instrument that has rewarded, 

as someone said earlier, tens of millions of dollars, even hundreds 

of millions of dollars, to executives of a company that went bankrupt that very year. It just does not make sense. 

What is evident and why people like stock options so much is 

that we have just in the 1990’s had the greatest boom in the stock 

market in all of history. And if you had a stock option, you did very 

well. You did very well whether your company was doing relatively 

well or whether it was doing relatively poorly. Everything was 

going up, not because you were suddenly a great genius, but because the whole market was going up. 

I think we better think about it here. I don’t make up the rules, 

but I think the effort is to put compensation in the form of stock 

options on a level playing field with other forms of compensation 

so that you do not distort the instrument that is used simply because it is accounted for differently, and accounted for in a way 

that logically is hardly sustainable. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Herz, this month the Congressional Budget 

Office released a report which found that net income will be overstated if firms do not recognize as an expense the fair value of employee stock options measured when options are granted. What is 

your evaluation of CBO’s conclusion? 

Mr. HERZ. Their conclusion is exactly the same as our conclusion. 

It is the same as the IASB’s conclusion. It is the same as the conclusion that has been reached after study by many different groups 

over a long period of time. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Volcker, if Congress intervenes to block the 

FASB proposal, what impact will this have on investor confidence, 

on the financial markets, and the ability of analysts to evaluate the 

financial condition of public companies? 

33

Mr. VOLCKER. Well, I think the influence would be adverse in all 

those terms. I don’t know how striking it would be. They have not 

been accounted for in the past so you are not changing the situation. 

What I am certain of, it would clearly undercut the efforts to get 

international consistency. And I think over time that is to the disadvantage of both companies raising money and investors investing 

money. 

You want both intelligent, comprehensive accounting standards, 

and you want them the same in different jurisdictions when both 

investors and companies are operating in a lot of jurisdictions. It 

is very difficult for our biggest companies—forget about the small 

companies—our biggest companies that may be operating in 60, 70, 

80, or 100 countries to follow 100 different accounting rules. And 

the effort is to reduce those differences as much as possible. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Herz, can you please describe for the Subcommittee the shortcomings of disclosing stock options in footnotes 

of financial statements compared to FASB’s proposal? 

Mr. HERZ. I think it is a longstanding principle in accounting 

and financial reporting that disclosure is not meant to be a substitute for wrong accounting. And that has been borne out by numerous academic studies in general and on this topic as well. 

I think the CBO report comments that individual investors do 

not comb the footnotes, and they just take the score as is. That is 

the score as reported, and that is the way they look at it. 

I think in talking with a number of institutional investors and 

quantitative analysts, they also do that because they take numbers 

from databases and don’t take as adjusted footnote numbers. They 

just take the score. And so that is why we have gotten so many—

all the surveys you see of investors, analysts, portfolio managers by 

an overwhelming margin say they want this number in the score. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your responses. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Senator Bennett. 

Senator BENNETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me say what I said in my opening statement again so that 

it is clear. I am in favor of expensing stock options. I am in favor 

of maintaining FASB’s independence. The points that Paul Volcker 

is making are absolutely on point. We need to do what we can to 

standardize around the world. So let’s not revisit that, OK? Let’s 

deal with what I think the real problems are, which I think FASB 

has ignored. 

Let me give you a hard, firm example here. You say it is eight 

or nine pages, it is fairly simple. I am delighted. I have a stock option which, according to Black-Scholes, is worth $10. It can be exercised tomorrow. I give my employees a stock option with a 10-year 

vesting at the same strike price as the stock option that I get. 

What is that worth? What does the 10-year vesting do? What is it 

worth? Look at your nine pages and give me a number. 

Mr. HERZ. OK. The first stock option would be expensed all right 

now, $10. The $10 on the second one would be spread over 10 

years, but if the fellow left, there would not only be no more compensation, there would be no compensation. 

34

Senator BENNETT. OK. So it is still worth $10, even though it 

can’t be——

Mr. HERZ. Not from an accounting point of view. 

Senator BENNETT. You just said that it would be——

Mr. HERZ. There is a measurement——

Senator BENNETT. You just said the $10 would be stretched over 

the 10 years. 

Mr. HERZ. The measurement would be 10. It would be stretched 

over the 10 years, but only to the extent the person worked to get 

it. That was the deal. 

Senator BENNETT. No. I am talking about putting it on my balance sheet as an accountant, putting it on my P&L. I have got one 

P&L; I deduct $10. That is very simple. Do I deduct $1 this year 

and $1 next year, etc., for the other one? 

Mr. HERZ. As long as the guy kept working to get it, yes. 

Senator BENNETT. So he drops dead of a heart attack in year 9, 

and my balance sheet shows a cumulative expense of $9. 

Mr. HERZ. The balance——

Senator BENNETT. In fact, do I get that $9 back? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes. 

Senator BENNETT. So that becomes profit. 

Mr. HERZ. It is not on the balance sheet, by the way. 

Senator BENNETT. Well, the P&L goes to the balance sheet. What 

happens to that $9? Does it become profit? Does it run to the balance sheet? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes, it runs back through the income statement and 

back through equity that was never created. 

Senator BENNETT. So in year 9, magically I have got $9 worth 

of income. Do I pay taxes on that? 

Mr. HERZ. Do you pay taxes on $9? 

Senator BENNETT. On that $9 that suddenly comes back in 9 

years. 

Mr. HERZ. The awardee of these stock options? 

Senator BENNETT. The company. Forget the company. I have got 

to keep the books. 

Mr. HERZ. No, the company does not pay any taxes. It is not——

Senator BENNETT. I get $9 worth of income and I do not pay any 

taxes on it? That is going to get Senator Levin really upset. 

Mr. HERZ. That is accounting income. 

Senator LEVIN. I would like to hear his answer to that. 

Senator BENNETT. Well, I would kind of like to hear the answer, 

too. 

Mr. HERZ. Well, first of all, you would have estimated for the 

whole group on day one how many people were going to be there 

through the 10 years. So you would have made an estimate of what 

is called forfeitures. 

Senator BENNETT. Right. 

Mr. HERZ. But in that situation, you would take back the $9. The 

deal was never completed. You had estimated wrongly. 

Senator BENNETT. But I got income on my income statement. 

Mr. HERZ. That is correct. 

Senator BENNETT. And I do not pay taxes on that income. 

Mr. VOLCKER. That would depend upon the IRS. 

35

Mr. HERZ. Well, it would depend on—not in the United States 

you wouldn’t, because the tax deduction, the stock option tax deduction actually occurs for the excess, the windfall of the value 

given. 

Senator BENNETT. All right. Let’s go back to the first one. The first one, no problem, Black-Scholes says it is $10. I put $10 as expense. Do I get a $10 tax deduction? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes. 

Senator BENNETT. So if I am a small businessman——

Mr. HERZ. You get the $10 tax deduction or a higher tax deduction when the person actually exercises the option. 

Senator BENNETT. Well, wait a minute. I am drawing up my tax 

return for this year, and I have got $10 worth of expense. 

Mr. HERZ. You have $10 of accounting expense. 

Senator BENNETT. Right. Can I take a tax deduction to that? 

Mr. HERZ. Not on your tax return. What you have is a deferred 

tax benefit for accounting purposes. 

Senator BENNETT. OK. When do I get to take the tax deduction? 

Mr. HERZ. As Senator Levin said, when there is an exercise of 

the option by the employee. Let’s say when the employee exercises 

and that employee—let’s say the stock has gone to $100, and he 

makes a profit of $50, say, because the strike price was, say, $50. 

The employee would declare taxable income of $50, and the company would get a tax deduction of $50 for taxable compensation. 

Senator BENNETT. So I take the expense in year 1, but I do not 

get the tax deduction until, say, year 5. 

Mr. HERZ. Right. 

Senator BENNETT. And you say that is making the financial 

statements clearer and more accurate if I don’t get the tax deduction in the same year that I take the expenses? 

Mr. HERZ. Well, the Tax Code and accounting are not the same. 

They are not designed to be the same. 

Senator BENNETT. Bingo. 

Mr. HERZ. Right. 

Senator BENNETT. That is the point that so many people are 

missing in this debate. The Tax Code and the accounting for expenses are different. So you are going to say to me as a company, 

you have to show in your statement to a shareholder that you just 

made no profit. Let us say the total cost of the options matches 

total amount I make, so you just show you have made no profit. 

Mr. HERZ. Correct. 

Senator BENNETT. In the footnote you have to say you have really got a lot of cash. 

Mr. HERZ. We have a cash flow statement. There are four basic 

financial statements. 

Senator BENNETT. Yes, you have got a cash flow statement. As 

a manager running a business, when I was running a small business, I looked for every deduction I could possibly find. Why? Because I didn’t want to pay any taxes. I managed the business to 

make sure that we didn’t earn a dime. 

Now, this is not a public company. This is a private company. I 

have run public companies and private companies. And I will tell 

you, private companies are a whole lot more fun. But we didn’t 

want to earn any money, accounting-wise, because we needed every 

36

penny of cash to make that fledgling business survive. So I looked 

for every possible deduction. 

So you come along and say, Here, you can deduct the cost of your 

stock options, and I say, Wonderful, do as many as you can so I 

can build as many deductions so I can save cash. The IRS says, no, 

we don’t recognize those as real expenses. 

Mr. HERZ. That is right. 

Senator BENNETT. Now, as soon as I go public, yes, FASB says 

they are real expenses, but IRS does not. I have to charge them 

against my income statement, and, therefore, they end up on the 

balance sheet as a lower reduction in retained earnings. But I do 

not get any tax benefit for doing that—except in certain countries, 

apparently, as we begin to go international. 

Mr. HERZ. In certain countries, they have an economic valuation 

like we do for accounting, rather than an outcome approach. 

Senator BENNETT. OK. The point of all this—and I will quit belaboring it. I am late to another meeting, and I apologize for just 

dumping this on you and having to leave. I want the financial 

statement to be as clear as possible, and so do you. That is why 

I favor expensing. But I am convinced that the way you have 

drawn this up is going to make the financial statement absolutely 

incomprehensible to somebody that does not have the kind of experience and background you do. And I guarantee you that Senator 

Enzi’s concern about small business is not ill-placed. 

Mr. HERZ. Well, for Senator Enzi and small business, we have 

proposed an alternative method, which is like the tax method. 

Senator BENNETT. So as soon as you get above a certain level, 

the rules change. 

Mr. HERZ. No. It is because for a private company you do not 

have liquid stock. There is a cost/benefit issue, and we think that 

makes—it is not pure, but it is a decent alternative, just like what 

you are saying. 

Senator BENNETT. How can you be sure that we do not have liquid stock if we do not have a public market? My brother-in-law 

might want my stock. 

Mr. HERZ. Well, then we are going to let you—the alternative 

then would be to do the right method and value it economically. 

Mr. VOLCKER. Brothers-in-law are not usually very liquid. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BENNETT. Each of us is a prisoner of his own experience. 

And my experience running little companies, handling start-up 

companies, one or two of which actually became big companies and 

ended up listed on the New York Stock Exchange—and they were 

a lot more fun to run, again, when they were private before we had 

to deal with analysts. It tells me that—sorry to disagree with my 

tall friend—there are some consequences that will affect the economy if this thing does not become a whole lot more user-friendly 

to the brand-new kind of stock option that has just grown up in the 

relatively recent future where you say we are going to have longterm vesting and we are going to have wide participation and it is 

going to be in start-ups. And that has helped fuel the growth of the 

American economy, and I do not think you have paid enough attention to that. 

37

At the end of the day, I am still with you that we ought to expense. I am still with you that we ought not to pass legislation. But 

I am very troubled that the consequences of what you have done 

seem to be so skewed towards the public company, the General Motors, the Coca-Colas, and the Microsofts of this world, that you 

could do significant harm in the entrepreneurial area. And that is 

what Senator Boxer is saying. 

As I say, I have not signed on to the Enzi bill. I have been under 

a lot of pressure to do it. I look at the Enzi bill, and I see a lot 

of things wrong with it. But I hope I have gotten across to you that 

even though technically I am in your camp, I am very troubled at 

the results that I see in the work that you have done. 

Mr. HERZ. Well, if I could respond? 

Senator BENNETT. Sure. 

Mr. HERZ. First, as I said, we have still a lot of due process left. 

We are meeting with the Small Business Advisory Committee. We 

have specifically crafted questions about not only private companies but small business issuers as to what ought to be appropriate 

there. 

As I said, we have proposed an alternative method, which is closer to what you are proposing, which would not require option pricing models, which would be more on what you seem to favor in 

general, what is called an exercise date type approach, which is 

kind of the accounting version of the Tax Code. And those are all 

things that we have invited comment on. So, rest assured we will 

be looking at all that, and we are very sensitive to the cost/benefit 

burdens, to the understandability. We have a question specifically 

in the notice to recipients about understandability. That is why we 

have lots of examples, as I said, in the document. 

So, I hope you will also have an open mind, and maybe we can 

visit with you. 

Senator BENNETT. I would be delighted to. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thanks, Senator Bennett. Senator Levin. 

Senator LEVIN. It seems to me there are two key issues: One is 

the difficulty, allegedly, of valuing something at a date which it is 

given to the employee, because you have got to estimate its value 

and it is not exercisable until some future date. And I would like 

to get some more examples from you as to how they work and 

about other forms of compensation which are also based on uncertainties where we do value. You have used two terms that I do not 

think—at least I am not familiar with one of them. Long-dated 

stock warrant, I think was the term. Another one was a convertible 

bond. And I think if you could just give us a word or two on each 

of those, it might be useful to show this is not some unusual, novel 

feature here, that we apparently do value things which are difficult 

to value. 

Now, we talked about good will and a number of other things 

which we are familiar with, even depreciation. But just in terms 

of these kinds of—I think you called them equities. What is a longdate stock warrant? And how is that similar to——

Mr. HERZ. Well, companies will use stock purchase warrants, 

which are like a stock option. It gives the counterparty, the holder, 

the person that you grant it to, the ability, the right to buy your 

38

stock, a share of your stock at a fixed price for a fixed term. And 

it may have various conditions in it. For example, it may be to a 

provider of services to your company that says you can do this as 

long as, if you are a lawyer, we win the next following five cases. 

Or if we only win four cases, then the terms of the warrant will 

change a little bit. I mean, these can get quite complicated, but——

Senator LEVIN. Are they valued now? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes, they have been required to be valued for many 

years and accounted for. 

Senator LEVIN. At the time that they are granted? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. So there are models, there are ways of 

valuing those kinds of conditional grants or transfers of stock. 

Mr. HERZ. Right. 

Senator LEVIN. What about the convertible bond? 

Mr. HERZ. Well, a convertible bond is a bond that contains a 

stock option in it. It basically allows at a fixed price the person to 

convert the bond into a certain number, a pre-specified number of 

shares. And those terms can go out 10, 15, 20, or 30 years. There 

has been in vogue recently what are called contingently 

convertibles, which not only have that feature but you can only actually do the conversion based upon some kind of formula of the 

stock price in the future meeting certain target levels. It only gets 

contingently triggered, yet you have to——

Senator LEVIN. Those contingent triggers are, nonetheless, valued in some way. 

Mr. HERZ. Sure. The instruments are valued every day in the 

marketplace. 

Senator LEVIN. But these can’t be valued in the marketplace, I 

gather—or can they? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes, they can. The convertible bonds are traded——

Senator LEVIN. No, I am talking about the stock option given to 

an employee. Can they be valued in the marketplace since they 

cannot be exercised by anyone other than that employee? 

Mr. HERZ. No, they do not trade in the marketplace, although as 

the CBO report comments, individuals, if you have enough of them, 

you can find ways to extract the value, protect the value through 

hedging devices. 

Senator LEVIN. So through a hedging device you actually can extract, as you put it——

Mr. HERZ. You can monetize the value at a point in time. 

Senator LEVIN. Even though it cannot be exercised by anyone 

other than the employee? 

Mr. HERZ. Right. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. 

Senator FITZGERALD. They are not transferable, is that why they 

cannot be sold? 

Mr. HERZ. That is correct. And as part of our methodology, we 

recognized that, and, in fact, there is a big hair cut effectively for 

that in the modeling. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. Now, that is extremely helpful information, I believe, because one of the issues we hear a lot from people 

who want to override FASB is you cannot value these. And you are 

saying there are all kinds of contingent instruments, conditional inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
39

struments, which are valued all the time that are similar to these 

instruments. 

Mr. HERZ. And often more complicated. 

Senator LEVIN. And even more complicated. 

Now, the other issue has to do with, I think, your conversation 

with Senator Bennett, if I followed it, and that had to do with there 

may be an option open to small businesses where you are going to 

allow them—particularly if they are not publicly owned, I gather—

to opt into the certainty of saying, OK, you do not want to do that 

when they are exercised, if they are exercised, if you take a tax deduction at that point they show up on your books. Did I hear you 

correctly? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes, well, what we are doing is saying take, as you 

go along, what the difference between the current value of the 

stock and the strike price is, and then finally at exercise date, you 

would have the final measurement there. So it is kind of each period you would be showing what the status is. 

Senator LEVIN. Would it be the same as a tax deduction? 

Mr. HERZ. The final measurement overall would be the same as 

a tax deduction for non-qualified stock options. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. 

Mr. VOLCKER. Then you know what the value of the stock is, and 

there is no——

Senator LEVIN. Excuse me, Mr. Volcker. What were you saying? 

Repeat that so we can all hear it. 

Mr. VOLCKER. I don’t know how you keep adjusting the value of 

the option when there is no market for the stock. 

Mr. HERZ. You would value the stock just like you do for tax purposes in order to figure out the tax deduction. 

Senator LEVIN. But at the end of the day——

Mr. VOLCKER. You don’t have a market. 

Senator LEVIN. Wait a minute, if you are going to speak, which 

is fine, I think we have got to get this on the record so we understand what you two guys are saying. This is an unusual hearing 

in this regard, but it is welcome, provided we can—I would welcome it on my time, providing I understand what you are saying 

to each other. 

Now, at the end of the day, however, the amount of the tax deduction would equal the amount of the expense shown on the books 

under that option. Is that correct? 

Mr. HERZ. The cumulative expense, yes. 

Senator LEVIN. OK, but that is the bottom line at the end of the 

day. 

Mr. HERZ. That is right. 

Senator LEVIN. Putting aside the difficulty that Mr. Volcker is 

talking——

Mr. HERZ. By the way, we have also said that if you are a public 

company and you really don’t think you can do the grant date valuation with sufficient reliability, and you convince your auditors of 

that, and possibly you might get chosen for SEC review and you 

would have to convince them. But you could use that alternative 

method in that circumstance as well. 

Senator LEVIN. That is the certainty approach. Have you gotten 

much support from the business community for that approach? 

40

Mr. HERZ. No, and I think for two reasons. One is—I think they 

believe that the value—the cost is the grant date because that is 

the date the deal is made and it is based on today’s price and you 

kind of figure out what the value is then. 

Senator LEVIN. So the business community wants the grant date 

to be the date that the valuation takes place, and yet it is the same 

community that says you cannot value on that date. 

Mr. HERZ. Well, I think certain elements of the business community. 

Senator LEVIN. Well, it is part of the business. But part of the 

argument you get from the opponents is you cannot value on the 

date that you give the right away. But part of the opposition we 

also hear is you cannot value on that date. It seems to me that 

those are two inconsistent arguments. At least the same person 

should not make both arguments. 

Mr. HERZ. I agree. 

Senator LEVIN. Now, do you know how many companies now expense stock options? There are quite a few that are actually now 

doing it. 

Mr. HERZ. The last tally I saw that either already are or said 

they will be in the near future was about 500. 

Senator LEVIN. And those would be fairly significant size companies? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes. I mean, there are, as I remember, about 115 of 

them are in the S&P 500 and——

Senator LEVIN. And have they shown any loss in stock price as 

a result, do you know? Have you seen any studies on that? 

Mr. HERZ. I saw a study by Towers Perrin recently that said they 

didn’t. 

Senator LEVIN. Did not? 

Mr. HERZ. They did not suffer a loss in stock price. I also saw 

another study by some professors—I think one was at Stanford as 

I remember—that said they actually got a very short-term bounce, 

probably on the view that they got some reward for better accounting, better corporate governance. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. My time is up. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you. Senator Lieberman. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been a 

really interesting and important hearing. I wanted to share an observation and then ask a few questions, and it is about this question of the independence of FASB, which I respect. 

We are not accountants up here. Senator Enzi happens to be the 

only accountant in the Senate, as far as I know. So why did I get 

interested a decade ago? Because I was concerned hearing from 

people in business about the impact of the accounting change that 

FASB was proposing on the economy, on millions of workers who 

are benefiting from options, etc. 

If I understand the history here, you are essentially a private 

group—really, a professional group, exercising an authority that 

has significant public effects. And if I get it correctly, this is a public authority that was granted by statute to the SEC to set accounting standards, which it in its wisdom delegated to FASB. 

So you have got a situation where a public authority has, for reasons that make a lot of sense in most cases—because we should not 

41

be doing accounting standards. That is not our business. But you 

have got a public authority granting this power to a private entity, 

and then it makes a judgment that has, at least in my opinion, and 

obviously a lot of others, in this case a big effect on public policy, 

on the economy. And yet part of my concern is that with independence in this case comes no accountability. So your decisions cannot 

be appealed to court, can they? 

Mr. HERZ. I am not sure about that, but——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Can I ask one more question and then let 

you respond? Just as a factual basis, can the SEC—I assume—let 

me state it as my on-one-leg opinion—that the SEC retains the authority to override a FASB ruling. Is that correct? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes, that is exactly correct, and we are subject at the 

technical level to very detailed oversight, monitoring, and involvement by the SEC staff. They have been following every aspect of 

what we do on this project and every other project. They can and 

have on occasion said, gee, we don’t agree with what you are coming up with, either stop or we will override it. That has happened 

on one occasion in the past, on another occasion back in the 1960’s 

with the investment tax credit Congress overrode the then Accounting Principles Board. 

You raise a good point, and it is, to a certain extent, a difference 

in philosophies or public goods. The view of accounting standard 

setting, whether it be our Board or the International Board, is that 

we really have to be unbiased and neutral as to the economic consequences. The economic consequences do flow from better information. What you measure matters and the like, and that is the best 

way to assist the capital markets and the credibility of overall financial information. 

Now, there are other people who would assert another public policy good, but that is not, in fact, in the SEC document that re-recognized us after Sarbanes-Oxley, it basically said, reaffirmed that 

what we do has to be objective and neutral. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Right. So that gives me some comfort, if you 

will, and I would welcome your responding in writing afterward 

about my assumption that FASB’s rulings are not subject to appeal 

in court. But the way to balance what FASB’s independence brings 

and the possibility whether in this decision or another one—let’s 

assume that this decision is a debatable one. Arguably, FASB 

might do something that most of us up here and in America would 

think was lunacy, whatever it is. 

The accountability and the public interest in that then goes to 

the SEC, which has the authority to override, and obviously that 

is something that they can consider as this particular proceeding 

goes on. 

Listening to Senator Bennett, he said he is for the expensing of 

stock options, but I think his questioning really brought out why 

those of us who have said we are not for the expensing of options 

at the time of granting have such a problem with this, because we 

do not know how you can do it accurately. At one point, I think you 

said if the value—the point here is to try to put a value on the option now, on the day it is granted. But the only value that I can 

see that the option has on the day it is granted that I would have 

42

any confidence in is the stock price on that day, the market price 

on that day. But, of course, it is not going to be exercised. 

You said earlier that since 1995, when FASB required the footnote disclosing, according to Black-Scholes, the value of the options 

that people have been doing it and living with it. But is there any 

basis for—in other words, they have been applying the formula, but 

is there any basis for having any confidence that it is accurate, 

that the result of it is accurate? 

Mr. HERZ. Well, it is accurate based upon the accuracy of the 

valuation. Again, these valuations are based upon models that are 

basic financial economic theorems and that are tested every day in 

the markets for these other instruments. There are certain adjustments you make for employee stock options because of the transferability aspects, the vesting aspects, and those kinds of things. But 

the basic models themselves are tried and tested in the marketplace. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. Let’s say that on the day of granting, the 

market price is $10 a stock and, according to Black-Scholes, the 

value of it is $20. 

Mr. HERZ. No, it cannot be more than the stock. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I am sorry. It is the—well, OK. I am sorry. 

I am going to the deductibility. 

Here is my point. Let’s say that when we get to the date of exercise there is an obvious difference between what Black-Scholes predicted and what the value really was to the employee. Is there any 

way to alter the expenses if they turn out to be inaccurate so that 

the company is not—this is, I guess, in a way what Senator Bennett was asking you—is not stuck with the impact of having expensed at a greater, or even a lesser rate, in the interest of equity, 

than it turned out to be? 

Mr. HERZ. Well, we are continuing to talk a little bit past each 

other, but because, again, the grant date value is the value at the 

grant date, the model takes into account Black-Scholes, a million 

different possibilities of where the stock might end, not just——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Yes, but that is my problem. It is only going 

to end in one place. 

Mr. HERZ. That is correct. But I would commend you to read the 

CBO report as to why the grant date is the right cost to the company. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. I will. Let me ask this question: If the 

Black-Scholes system has been working so well, why in the released exposure draft have you urged companies to use the binomial or lattice model to value employee stock options? 

Mr. HERZ. The lattice models are—it is like taking Black-Scholes 

and opening it up. Black-Scholes is kind of hard-wired. You have 

to put a set of uniform assumptions into it, and then it cranks out 

a value. The binomial model allows you to, for example, say, well, 

I am going to sell division and, therefore, my volatility and dividend policy is going to change next year. It allows you to take the 

assumptions and change them by periods, just as you would if you 

were going to, for example, value an intangible or value an in-process R&D project, which are regularly done. It is taking the BlackScholes and opening it up. 

43

So what it means is that you can, getting the right information, 

you can get a more refined estimate than just the simple BlackScholes because it is less flexible. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. My time is running out, and I want to let 

the next panel come on. 

Why not avoid all of these problems that we have talked about, 

about the difficulty of predicting the value of a stock a year or 5 

years or 10 years forward, when there are so many variables, by 

requiring the expensing to occur on the day it is granted, when to 

me it has no value. The value comes to the employee, as the tax 

system recognizes, when he exercises it because he pays a tax on 

the spread between the price of the stock on the day he got the option and the price of the stock that he exercised it—and, incidentally, as has been pointed out, the company gets to deduct the 

spread. 

So in what Senator Levin refers to as a double standard, we disagree on that—the same thing is bothering both of us but we have 

come to different conclusions. Why not resolve the problem by requiring an expensing of stock options on the date of exercise? 

Mr. HERZ. Well, we could do that. We do not think it is the proper measure of the compensation. It is what the individual actually 

gets out of it, but it is not the measure of the cost to the company. 

Again, I would commend you to the CBO report to understand 

why——

Senator LIEBERMAN. Talk a little bit about that. It is what the 

individual gets out of it. It is what the company——

Mr. HERZ. As Chairman Fitzgerald said, once you issue this, 

what happens is there is a wealth transfer that goes on after that 

between the existing stockholders and these new equity owners. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. But it is of indeterminate value. 

Mr. HERZ. No, it can be valued——

Senator LIEBERMAN. It dilutes the stock to some extent, but we 

don’t know how much until it gets exercised. 

Mr. HERZ. You don’t know the final measure of what that is, but 

you know the value at any point in time. 

Now, we could do that, but then the question would be: Would 

we also do that for every other instrument that takes these same 

kinds of things, like a convertible? If I issue to you a convertible 

and 15 years down the road you may convert that, and although 

you only paid $1,000 for that bond, you may convert it—this was 

a very successful company—at $30,000. Should we measure the expense to the company at $30,000? 

I will give you another example: Stock purchase warrants that 

are issued to suppliers. I give you 10 of my stock purchase warrants for 10 of your widgets, and we will agree that your widgets 

are each worth $5 and my warrants are each worth $5, so we have 

a fair value exchange of $50. Those warrants entitle you to exercise 

or to buy the stock at a fixed price for 10 years. Nine years down 

the road, I am, again, a successful company; you exercise it for 

$300. Should we have said that the cost of the goods that I got 

from you, the five widgets, was $300, not $50? It is incongruous. 

Senator LIEBERMAN. My time is up, but I would really urge you 

to do everything you can to open up the hearings that you are 

going to hold and make sure you hear from people on all sides and 

44

think about what they say. And then obviously I hope that the SEC 

will follow what you are doing and exercise the authority that it 

has delegated to you if it thinks that FASB has done something 

that is not right. Thank you very much. 

Incidentally, this is very difficult for me to go through this debating process with Mr. Herz because he and FASB, I am proud to 

say, are located in Norwalk, Connecticut. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Well, thank you, Senator Lieberman. 

I have just a couple of wrap-up questions. Have you had any indication from the SEC as to their views on this new rule? They 

haven’t given any indication that they——

Mr. HERZ. Well, they completely support our process. I think 

both the chairman and the chief accountant have said they are in 

favor of expensing. Many of their staff have been involved and actually helped with crafting a lot of suggestions along the way, more 

in terms of crafting the questions and the like. But they will continue to——

Senator FITZGERALD. So we have the SEC, Alan Greenspan, his 

predecessor Paul Volcker, Warren Buffett, and others, all supporting the concept of expensing stock options. 

On the Tax Code and accounting, isn’t it true that what companies tell the IRS is that their earnings are far less than what they 

report to the public? In fact, companies now report to their shareholders many times the earnings than what their earnings are that 

they report to the IRS. We used to have pretty good parity between 

what you reported to the IRS as your earnings, probably until the 

early 1960’s or so. As an investor I would like to see the tax returns that a company I might invest in submitted to the IRS, because I tend to believe their real earnings are closer to what they 

report to the IRS than what they report to the public. 

Mr. Volcker. 

Mr. VOLCKER. I think there is no question that there is a discrepancy. It seems to be increasing, and something ought to be done 

about it. But if the accounting is correct, presumably something 

ought to be done about it from the tax side. 

Senator FITZGERALD. That is right. 

Now, I just wanted to clarify one point. Senator Boxer said that 

it was not appropriate for lobbyists to be testifying. I did not invite 

lobbyists to testify. I invited the CEOs of Cisco, Intel, HewlettPackard to testify or send a high-ranking corporate official, CFO or 

other officer. None of them wanted to do that. We tried other companies, as well. Nobody who was refusing to expense stock options 

wanted to come and trumpet that to America in a public hearing. 

I thought that was very telling because I thought they weren’t necessarily really wanting—they were not really proud of what they 

were doing. They are a little bit sheepish about it. 

And, with that, I want——

Senator LEVIN. Could I just ask Mr. Volcker if he might be willing to expand for the record, perhaps, his one-word answer, ‘‘No,’’ 

when he was asked by Senator Akaka whether or not he thought 

this rule would increase the amount of outsourcing or slow job creation? I know that we have taken a lot of time now, but if he would 

be willing for the record just to expand on that answer. 

45

Mr. VOLCKER. Well, all I mean to say is that nobody is prohibiting stock options, if that is considered a uniquely advantageous 

way of rewarding people, and it may be for some start-up companies. But I don’t think the way they are going to account for it 

should dominate that consideration, and that if it is really the right 

way to compensate, go ahead and do it. If you don’t compensate 

that way, do it some other way. But it will appear as an expense. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator FITZGERALD. And somebody mentioned China, too. Isn’t 

it true that China will require the expensing of stock options? 

Mr. VOLCKER. I believe so. [Laughter.] 

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. 

Mr. VOLCKER. China will follow international accounting standards, which apparently will—I mean the present international accounting standard requires. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Well, thank you, gentlemen. We are delighted that you were here today, and your testimony was interesting. Senator Bennett is also on the Banking Committee, and he 

declined an opportunity to question Alan Greenspan at his hearing 

to be here to talk to both of you. So thank you both very much for 

being here. 

Senator FITZGERALD. At this point I would like to invite our third 

and final panel up to the witness table. I have to warn everybody 

that I have to leave at 5:30 p.m. If Senator Levin is still here, I 

would be happy to allow him to take over, but this is going to necessitate that we move pretty rapidly through our final panel. 

Our first witness is Jack T. Ciesielski, the owner of R.G. Associates, Inc., an investment research and portfolio management firm 

located in Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Ciesielski is the publisher of 

‘‘The Analyst’s Accounting Observer,’’ an accounting advisory service for securities analysts. Before founding R.G. Associates in 1992, 

he spent nearly 7 years as a security analyst with the Legg Mason 

Value Trust. From 1997 to 2000, Mr. Ciesielski served as a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council, which 

advises the FASB, and he currently serves on the FASB’s Emerging Issues Task Force. 

Our second witness on the panel is Damon Silvers, who is an Associate General Counsel for the AFL–CIO. Mr. Silvers’ work at the 

AFL–CIO includes corporate governance, pension, and other business law issues. He is a member of a number of boards and advisory groups, including the Public Company Accounting Oversight 

Standing Advisory Group, the Financial Accounting Standards 

Board User Advisory Council, and the New York Stock Exchange 

Stock Options Voting Task Force. Prior to his work at the AFL–

CIO, Mr. Silvers was the Assistant Director of the Office of Corporate and Financial Affairs for the Amalgamated Clothing and 

Textile Workers Union. 

Our third witness is from my home State, Donald P. Delves, who 

is the President and Founder of The Delves Group, which works to 

foster the growth and development of businesses through evaluating and building effective total compensation systems. Mr. 

Delves, as I said, is from Illinois and he has over 20 years of consulting experience in the area of compensation and incentive systems. He is a popular speaker on executive compensation, stock opVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
46

1The prepared statement with an attachment and an accompanying addition to the written 

statement of Mr. Ciesielski appear in the Appendix on pages 89 and 97 respectively. 

tions, and corporate accountability. He recently sent me a copy of 

his new book, ‘‘Stock Options and the New Rules of Corporate Accountability: Measuring, Managing,’’ which was published just last 

year, in October 2003. Mr. Delves, thank you for being here. 

Our fourth witness is Mark Heesen, who is President of the National Venture Capital Association, NVCA. The NVCA is a 

member-based trade association that works to maintain high professional industry standards and foster an understanding of the importance of venture capital in the United States and global economies. Since 1991, Mr. Heesen has worked on behalf of the venture 

capital community to enact a wide range of policies that benefit the 

venture capital and entrepreneurial communities, including the significant capital gains differential securities litigation reform, accounting treatment of stock options, and reform of the Food and 

Drug Administration’s pre-market approval process. 

Our final witness is someone whose columns I love reading in the 

Sunday Washington Post. They are normally very insightful and 

very good, and the column was very good this past week. It is 

James K. Glassman, who is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, AEI. Mr. Glassman’s 

research addresses such areas as Social Security, economics, the 

Federal budget, interest rates, the stock market, and taxes. During 

the past 10 years, Mr. Glassman has written a weekly syndicated 

column for the Washington Post on investing. He is the author of 

‘‘The Secret Code of the Superior Investor.’’ He has written two 

books geared toward small investors and has published numerous 

articles on investing topics in publications such as the Reader’s Digest and the Wall Street Journal. 

Again, I would like to thank you all for being here. As I said, we 

are going to have to end at 5:30 sharp. I am, therefore, asking you 

to please submit your lengthier written statements for the record. 

But please try and summarize your remarks in 5 minutes or less 

so we can finish on time. In fact, that won’t leave us much time 

even for questions, so the quicker, briefer, and more succinct you 

can be in your opening statements, we would really appreciate it. 

Mr. Ciesielski, will you begin. Thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF JACK T. CIESIELSKI,1 PRESIDENT, R.G. 

ASSOCIATES, INC. 

Mr. CIESIELSKI. Thank you. Chairman Fitzgerald, Ranking Member Akaka, and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Jack 

Ciesielski, President of R.G. Associates. It is my pleasure to be participating in this hearing, and I look forward to answering your 

questions if we have time. 

I have a brief prepared statement, and I would respectfully request that the entire text of my testimony and the accompanying 

written statement be entered into the public record. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Without objection. 

Mr. CIESIELSKI. Let me preface my remarks with a brief description of my business and how it relates to this hearing. My firm, 

R.G. Associates, Inc., is primarily an independent investment reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
47

1 ‘‘The Analyst’s Accounting Observer,’’ appears in the Appendix on page 153. 

search firm and is dedicated to the analysis of corporate accounting 

issues. We have a small asset management business, but our main 

focus is the publication of a research service entitled ‘‘The Analyst’s 

Accounting Observer,’’ which analyzes and explains accounting 

trends to both buy-side and sell-side analysts.1 Frequently, Observer reports are devoted to new or pending pronouncements of 

the Federal Accounting Standards Board. Our client base of approximately 70 firms is diverse. Readers of our research range from 

some of the world’s largest mutual fund families and well-established brokerage firms and rating agencies, all the way down to 

money management firms with only a handful of employees and assets under management. In short, our client base is a unique crosssectional view of the many different kinds of financial statement 

users. 

I have been writing the Observer for over 12 years, and as I have 

composed reports about new FASB standards, I have had plenty of 

interaction with the Board and its staff. I have participated in the 

Board’s hearings and roundtables on proposed standards, and as a 

member of the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council 

and Emerging Issues Task Force, I have had ample opportunity to 

observe the deliberations and the due process that goes into the development of FASB standards. I have had the chance to see how 

the standard-setting process benefits from the inputs provided by 

accounting firms and financial statement preparers—from people 

who are close to the issues being considered by the Board and 

whose experience with those issues helps the Board develop more 

durable standards. In my view, the FASB’s system of listening, 

learning, and then improving their proposals works very well as it 

exists. 

With that, I would like to turn my attention to the purpose of 

this hearing. On the surface, this hearing is all about an accounting standard dealing with stock options given to employees, but 

there is a much larger issue that merits our attention. That issue 

is the independence of the FASB, for if there were not attempts by 

some parties to legislate action that robs the FASB of its independence, we would not be having this hearing today. 

The FASB plays a unique and indispensable function in our 

country’s capital market system—as is the role of any standard setter. Progress in society would be impossible if there were not uniform standards for many of the things we take for granted: For instance, something as simple as the design of electrical outlets. That 

is what makes the FASB’s role critical: By being the independent 

arbiter of principles at the foundation of financial reporting, investors benefit from financial information that is more comparable and 

robust than would exist if every preparer had their own way of presenting information. 

In my years of observing the standard-setting process, I have 

seen the Board develop improved accounting standards with an unmatched level of openness and fairness. Their standards will not 

make everyone happy—in addressing the complicated issues they 

are charged with, it is impossible to satisfy all parties involved. 

The reason we are here is because some of FASB’s constituents are 

48

so unhappy with their attempts to reform the accounting for stock 

option compensation that they have pulled Congress into the process. They are seeking a legislative answer to an accounting rule 

they oppose and, in doing so, usurping the FASB’s authority to set 

standards. I believe that the FASB’s ability to develop impartial 

standards resulting in robust information for investors to use 

would be seriously hampered if legislative intervention becomes the 

norm for disagreeing with their pronouncements, and a blueprint 

for such behavior was created the last time the Board attempted 

to remedy option compensation accounting 10 years ago. While it 

may benefit a few of the Board’s constituents to preserve the 

present broken accounting model, in the long run our capital markets would likely suffer and result in capital being misallocated in 

the economy at large. 

I would like to focus the remainder of my remarks more specifically on the accounting issue under consideration, arguably the 

most contentious project ever taken up by the FASB. Despite the 

claims of vocal opponents, I do not view the FASB’s proposal for 

equity-based compensation accounting as somehow dangerous or 

reckless. In my judgment, the Board has listened fairly to the 

views of its constituents and learned much as this project has 

wended its way from an ‘‘invitation to comment’’ document in 2003 

to the exposure draft of a standard at the end of March. 

I believe that the issuance of a final standard requiring the recognition of stock option compensation would significantly benefit 

the users of financial statements. I believe the argument that options cannot be valued and, therefore, should reflect no compensation expense when given to employees is without merit. Companies 

use option pricing models such as the Black-Scholes model to value 

illiquid options and warrants they hold in their corporate portfolios. 

They use them to value options on their stock given as consideration in making acquisitions. Yet they will claim that the same 

models cannot be used to value options given to employees as compensation. It seems that the only acceptable value such options can 

have is zero. 

Some of the opponents of FASB’s proposals claim that the option 

compensation information should be relegated to a footnote as it is 

currently displayed. I disagree. The current presentation is a substitution of disclosure in place of paper accounting. It resulted from 

a Board that was badly compromised in 1994 due to the political 

actions that interfered with its independence. The information reported in the footnotes since 1996 were real transactions that occurred with employees, and financial statements are supposed to 

contain transactions that occurred in a firm for a given period. By 

our count for the S&P 500, net earnings were overstated by more 

than $175 billion from 1993 to 2002. That is information about 

transactions which was presented only once a year to investors 

rather than as it occurred each quarter, and it directly related to 

the resources under the firm’s disposal, which management is supposed to employ for the benefit of its shareholders. That is one of 

the tenets of capitalism and one that has been ignored when it 

comes to reporting equity-based compensation. 

Opponents of the FASB proposal often claim that stock prices 

will fall if option compensation is recognized in earnings. I cannot 

49

think of a more patronizing argument. Markets are supposed to 

allow capital to flow to wherever it can best earn the best return. 

Information about how capital is being managed allows capital providers to make rational investment decisions. If stock prices fall because capital is not being allocated properly in certain firms, then 

markets are allowing capitalism to function as it should. 

For decades, accounting standards have done a poor job in depicting how capital is being used when it comes to equity-based 

compensation, and consequently, we have seen how capital has 

been misallocated in the past. 

The interference surrounding the FASB equity compensation 

project is very much like a decade ago, when the Board proposed 

that health care benefits promised to employees——

Senator FITZGERALD. I’m going to have to ask you to wrap up, 

because we have to keep on going. We’ve gone past 5 minutes. 

Mr. CIESIELSKI. OK. The situation is similar to the one we had 

the tussle over accounting for other post-employment benefits. The 

world didn’t come to an end. We now have a referendum on how 

these things should be managed. 

Earlier in my comments I mentioned that a large variety of financial statement users contacted me in connection with the accounting observer. One question that they continually asked from 

analysts of all stripes is not can we stop this from happening. The 

most frequent question I hear is when will this go into effect. We 

want to start adjusting our models. 

Investors and analysts are ready now for such information, and 

would like to roll back the uncertainty that surrounds the way they 

will do their jobs. That will diminish if the FASB completes its 

project independently. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you very much. Mr. Silvers. 

TESTIMONY OF DAMON SILVERS, ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL, THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR-CONGRESS OF 

INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS (AFL–CIO) 

Mr. SILVERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will do my best at 

shortening this up. I am here on behalf of the American Federation 

of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, of our 13 million members who have $5 trillion invested in the capital markets, 

in retirement plans. 

The AFL–CIO strongly supports the Financial Accounting Standards Board in its effort to close the accounting loophole that has 

allowed corporations to radically understate the trust cost of executive compensation. We strongly oppose S. 9769, S. 1890, and other 

efforts to exempt stock options from the normal accounting rules 

and the normal processes by which accounting rules are made. 

In the mid-1990’s, as many of the previous witnesses have discussed, FASB attempted to require option expensing but was pressured by Congress into abandoning its position. We believe that 

this thwarting of FASB’s role as an independent body was a key 

contributor to the chain of events that led to the corporate scandals 

of the last several years that did profound damage to our members 

and our funds. 

Ten years later, there can be no doubt that this issue has been 

studied to death, most recently by the Congressional Budget Office. 

50

The Big 4 auto firms, the Conference Board, the chairs of the SEC 

and the PCAOB and every investor organization we are aware of 

agree, that at long last Congress should simply let FASB do its job. 

Against this background, efforts to prevent FASB from acting on 

its conclusions in the name of further study would simply lead to 

continued subsidy of excessive executive compensation, and at the 

cost of undermining the integrity of our accounting rules and the 

processes by which they’re made. 

Substantively, the AFL–CIO views stock options as one appropriate form of medium-term compensation for line employees. However, we think options are a poor form of executive compensation 

because they do not fully expose executives to downside risk in the 

same way that shareholders are. Options are also an inappropriate 

substitute for the basic wages and benefits needed to support a 

family. Not surprisingly, nonexecutive options are generally held by 

upper income Americans, whose base salaries already meet their 

fundamental economic needs. 

At the height of the stock market boom in 1999, only 1.7 percent 

of private sector employees received stock options, according to the 

BLS, and that was heavily concentrated among individuals earning 

more than $75,000 a year. Only 0.7 percent of those earning under 

$35,000 received options. 

Consequently, the labor movement opposes giving options preferential accounting treatment over other more important employee 

benefits, such as wages, pensions, or health care. Nonetheless, we 

do agree with the conclusions of the CBO study, that options expensing will not end option use or anything like that at cash short 

firms where they make strategic sense. And we’re fine with that. 

We think that’s a good thing, that those firms continue to use options. 

Two bills in this Congress, S. 1890 and H.R. 3574, purport to require the expensing of stock options for the top five most highly 

paid executives. However, that is a sham. These bills would require 

companies using an option pricing model, like Black-Scholes, to assume that the underlying stock prices has zero volatility. This minimum value approach allows companies to set the exercise price of 

the option equal to the current market price and book the value of 

the option at zero. 

Of course, in real life, the prices of publicly traded stocks are 

volatile, and these executive stock options have real value. Passing 

a bill that says that public company stock prices do not move and 

directing FASB to run an accounting system on that basis is the 

equivalent of passing a bill saying the Earth does not move around 

the sun, and then asking NASA to run a space program on that 

basis. You can do it, but don’t be surprised if something crashes. 

This slight of hand involving volatility is the latest example of 

misleading arguments surrounding the technical details of option 

valuation. My written statement goes into that in detail and I 

would be happy to answer questions on it. 

Today, the executives of the international stock options coalition 

have one billion dollars in options, in the money option value held, 

not one penny of which has been expensed. It should not be any 

mystery as to what their motives are. What is mysterious is how 

these executives of companies like Texas Instruments and HewlettVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
51

1The prepared statement of Mr. Delves with an attachment appears in the Appendix on page 

100. 

Packard reconcile the expenditures they are making in the cause 

of distorting their financial statements against the express wishes 

of the majority of their shareholders at both companies who voted 

on this, with those same executives’ fiduciary duties of loyalty and 

care. 

What is the bottom line of all of this? Let me refer you to the 

congressional testimony of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. As 

he put it, ‘‘You issue stock options to reduce compensation expense 

and, therefore, increase your profitability.’’ Surely we have learned 

enough from Enron not to mandate by statute that the Enron approach to not accounting for stock options be the law of the land. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you very much, Mr. Silvers. Mr. 

Delves. 

TESTIMONY OF DONALD P. DELVES,1 PRESIDENT, THE DELVES 

GROUP 

Mr. DELVES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I have been advising boards of directors and management on executive compensation for almost 20 years. Based on my experience, 

there is absolutely no question in my mind that we must have an 

expense for options, and it must be meaningful, significant, and 

soon. And there is no question that the FASB should decide how 

that expense will be determined. 

Ten years ago, the FASB tried to implement an expense for options. Congress intervened and the FASB backed down. Let’s look 

at the results. Over the last 10 years, executive pay has spiraled 

out of control, mostly due to excessive grants of stock options. Stock 

options use has more than tripled and boards of directors have 

done a poor job of getting more performance from this unprecedented increase in compensation. 

I believe that had the FASB been allowed to do its job and implement an expense 10 years ago, we would not be in the mess that 

we’re in today with regard to executive pay and corporate governance. 

Now let’s look at what’s happening around the country today. Because the FASB has put this expense out there, and most companies are taking this seriously, the good news is that in board rooms 

across the country boards of directors are reexamining their use of 

stock options and are coming up with new solutions and, in some 

cases, they’re even lowering executive pay. 

Boards are asking tougher questions about the true cost of options and what they’re getting in exchange for it. For example, we 

were asked to do an analysis for a company to show the board what 

the total cost to the shareholders had been of their stock option 

program. We were able to show that board of directors, over 10 

years, $1.2 billion of shareholder wealth had been transferred from 

shareholders to executives. There was no way that we could have 

done that using publicly available data. 

Now, interestingly, we also showed that same board that, over 

that 10 year period, had they expensed options using FASB’s proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Nov 08, 2004 Jkt 094481 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\94481.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PHOGAN
52

1The prepared statement of Mr. Heesen appears in the Appendix on page 105. 

posed method, the expense would have been $600 million, roughly 

half of the total cost to shareholders. 

Now, our research shows that we expect that to be true over time 

and across companies, that roughly 50 percent of the ultimate cost 

to shareholders will be captured in the accounting expense. However, that expense occurs up front when the options are granted. 

If it’s a high performing company and the stock price goes up, the 

total cost to shareholders could be much greater. But for the poor 

performing company, the cost to shareholders could be much lower. 

It could even be zero. 

For that reason, I prefer the intrinsic value method that Mr. 

Herz discussed, which is the alternative method that is allowed for 

certain private companies. I think it does a better job of capturing 

the true cost to shareholders. It would provide better information 

to board of directors and could result in more creative solutions in 

executive pay. 

However, the debate over how the expense should be determined 

belongs with the FASB. I look forward to engaging with them in 

that debate according to their proscribed process. 

So, in summary, there must be a significant and meaningful expense for stock options, and FASB must decide how. 

Thank you. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you, Mr. Delves. Mr. Heesen. 

TESTIMONY OF MARK HEESEN,1 PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

VENTURE CAPITAL ASSOCIATION 

Mr. HEESEN. Good afternoon. 

I’m going to address this question as it really relates around private companies and newly public companies. That’s where the venture capital industry concentrates and that’s where 11 percent of 

the employment opportunities are right now. 

Almost without exception, young, growth oriented venture 

backed companies use options to attract the brightest talent at a 

time when cash is scarce, just as Senator Bennett was saying. 

These employees take a considerable risk to work at unproven companies, knowing that through their stock option program they may 

be rewarded, if and only if the company succeeds. 

Should FASB’s proposal go through, we believe stock options will 

be artificially too costly for many of these young companies to offer 

to all their employees, thus seriously hindering their ability to attract human capital to compete and providing a false picture of 

their financial health, which will ultimately lengthen their reliance 

on venture capital. 

This is the important point from our angle. The longer these 

companies stay artificially in the red, the longer it takes our companies to be acceptable to the public. Because there aren’t analysts 

following these kinds of companies, we will have to continue to 

work with those companies at the expense of putting new money 

into new companies. That means fewer venture backed companies 

will be funded, fewer new technologies will be funded, because our 

industry does not scale. There are only a certain number of venture 

53

capitalists who know how to basically grow companies, and they 

will only be able to do so much in this period. 

We have seen this in the past. You will see a reduction in the 

number of emerging growth companies being funded by venture 

capital. 

One of the largest challenges of mandatory option expensing for 

small companies is the burden of valuation, which we’ve been talking about. FASB has put forth three models for valuation. The first 

two models, Black-Scholes and the lattice method, require a volatility number as a critical input. Yet, the underlying shares of a 

privately held company have never been liquid, so there is no 

precedent to derive a volatility number, thus creating a significant 

and costly accounting quagmire. 

When issuing FAS 123 in 1994, FASB agreed. They stated the 

Board recognizes that estimating expected volatility for the stock 

of a newly formed entity that is rarely traded, even privately, is not 

feasible. The Board therefore decided to permit a nonpublic entity 

to omit expected volatility in determining a value for its options. 

The result is that a nonpublic entity may use the minimum value 

method. 

Rather than to continue to offer private companies the minimum 

value method, which sets volatility at zero, FASB now advises 

these organizations to use Black-Scholes, the lattice method, or as 

we’ve been hearing a lot here today, the intrinsic value reporting. 

We believe that this intrinsic value reporting model really is akin 

to offering no choice at all. 

In its proposal, FASB has modified the intrinsic value calculation 

to require that the share options and similar options be remeasured at intrinsic value at each reporting period through the date 

of settlement. Historically, this calculation has taken place only 

once, recognizing that companies rarely have the information to 

reset a stock price that is not tradeable. A continuous recalculation 

of intrinsic value is too costly for most organizations to bear, resulting in invariable accounting which is the result—which experts 

have recognized is unwieldy and impractical, but a gold mine for 

newly admitted valuation consultants, accountants, and let’s not 

forget the trial board. 

Unfortunately, GAAP is not a matter of choice for private companies. Most start up and report their financials under GAAP because they expect or hope to ultimately move through an initial 

IPO process or be acquired by a public company. Again, by placing 

this accounting burden on young companies, FASB is lengthening 

the reliance on expensive, high risk capital to the start-up sector. 

Should FASB move forward with its current stock option accounting mandate, the Board will be acting in direct conflict with 

its stated goals: ‘‘The cost imposed to meet that standard as compared to other alternatives are justified in relation to the overall 

benefits from improvements in financial reporting.’’ The Board has 

long acknowledged that the cost of any accounting requirement 

falls disproportionately on small entities because of their limited 

accounting resources and the need to rely on outside professionals. 

As the Chicago Tribune stated in its April 6 editorial, ‘‘Expensing 

isn’t a panacea for investors and it carries a cost that could hurt 

entrepreneurship.’’

54

1The prepared statement of Mr. Glassman appears in the Appendix on page 112. 

Thank you. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you. 

Before I go on to Mr. Glassman, because I’m from Illinois, I have 

to respond to the Chicago Tribune. I have Mr. Ciesielski’s Analyst 

Accounting Observer Report that shows that the Tribune Company, 

which owns the Chicago Tribune—and I love the Chicago Tribune, I’ve read it all my life, and they always endorse me. They’re a wonderful paper. 

But the last time I checked, their earnings were overstated more 

than any other company in my State. According to this report, their 

earnings in 2003 were overstated by 10 percent by virtue of their 

failure to expense stock option compensation. They are heavy users 

of stock option compensation. Their earnings per share, as reported 

last year, were $2.61. If they had expensed their stock option compensation, it would be $2.38. 

I only wanted to disclose that because I thought they should 

have disclosed that in the editorial they wrote opposing the new 

FASB rule. 

Mr. HEESEN. And I would love to see the Washington Post do the 

same thing, frankly, on the other side, with Mr. Buffett owning a 

good chunk of the Washington Post. That would also be helpful. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Mr. Buffett does, and he favors the expensing of stock options——

Mr. HEESEN. And we would never see——

Senator FITZGERALD. Also, I think they have a shareholder there, 

Donald Graham, who doesn’t want to give all his value away necessarily, so he’s really watching the company. He’s an owner more 

than just a manager, and he’s representing the interests of the 

owners. We’ll leave some time for questioning, though. Mr. Glassman works for the Washington Post, but apparently does not share 

their editorial viewpoint. 

Thank you, Mr. Glassman. 

TESTIMONY OF JAMES K. GLASSMAN,1 RESIDENT FELLOW, 

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Mr. GLASSMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the 

kind introductory remarks, Senator Levin. 

Let me just comment on what you just said. I obviously have no 

reaction to what you’re saying about the Washington Post. I do 

have a number of very good friends who work for the Chicago Tribune at upper management levels, and I can tell you that one of the 

reasons they are there and diligently working is, indeed, because 

of their stock options, which they talk to me about all the time. 

Let me begin my testimony. One in two American families own 

stock, and one in eight U.S. private sector workers hold stock options. Senator Lieberman calls this revolutionary democratization. 

I agree with that. 

The FASB proposal of March 31 will adversely affect these Americans. The proposal is likely to depress the value of securities and, 

for many firms, it will lead to the elimination or reduction of broadbased stock options, 94 percent of which, according to a new study, 

go to employees below the top management level. Discontinuing or 

55

reducing these options programs will have an adverse effect on 

U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and job creation. It will needlessly damage the U.S. economy. 

In 1972, when FASB’s predecessor first looked at this question—

not 10 years ago, but 1972—it decided against expensing options 

when issued. The reason, ‘‘Because of the concern that stock options could not be reliably valued at the exercise date.’’ That is still 

true. 

Now, the current regime gives investors the information they 

need in the form of copious material and financial statements. Mr. 

Chairman, with your permission, I would like to enter into the 

record—this is the Intel Corporation annual report. You can look 

at virtually any annual report of a company that issues options. 

Here under earnings per share it lists the effect of the dilution of 

stock options, reducing earnings per share, which is what investors 

care about, and it goes on for three pages with notes on stock options. That’s more information than most companies include on 

things that I think are a lot more important, such as the sources 

of their revenue, other forms of compensation, patents, debt, all 

sorts of things. This information is in these annual reports. 

Now, I would just like to focus briefly on the issue of FASB’s accountability. Much has been made of FASB’s independence. But accountants need to be accountable, too. As Mr. Volcker just said, 

they need to be exposed to the real world—that is, to the people’s 

representatives. America’s elected representatives not only have 

the authority, they have the moral and legal responsibility to oversee the activities of FASB just as they oversee the activities of the 

SEC, which in 1973 ceded responsibility itself for these standards 

to FASB. 

Now, this does not mean modifying or overruling common, dayto-day decisions. Of course, not. But it does mean carefully examining the impact of a tremendously important decision like this one 

on options and accounting. This is not interference. This is not 

intervention. This is not tampering. This is a responsible execution 

of your job. 

FASB has a single mission, which it states this way: ‘‘To establish and improve standards of financial accounting and reporting 

for the guidance and education of the public, including issuers, 

auditors, and users of financial information.’’ FASB executives have 

said clearly that the economic consequences of their decisions do 

not concern them, and they’re right. But you, as Federal policymakers, have a far broader mission: Encouraging economic growth, 

preserving and increasing jobs, innovation and competitiveness. 

Now, even if FASB’s expensing proposal were cogent from an accounting and financial viewpoint—and in my opinion it is not—it 

would be the duty of Congress to consider its economic impact. 

Finally, FASB on the one hand states that it is independent, so 

hands off. On the other, it has been vigorously lobbying. As I believe Senator Enzi originally said, there is an article today in the 

Wall Street Journal, and let me just quote from it, about a conference call yesterday: 

‘‘During the conference call Monday, Sir David Tweedy, chairman 

of the International Accounting Standards Board, said to institutional investors, it would be a ‘real disaster’ if Congress blocked 

56

FASB. ‘We would be horrified if politicians in the United States 

stepped in,’ he said.’’

Sorry, Sir David. Congress has work to do, and I congratulate 

you, Mr. Chairman, on holding this hearing and doing that work. 

Thank you. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Mr. Glassman, thank you. 

On your remarks about Intel disclosing their in the money options, they don’t disclose in that footnote their stock options that 

aren’t in the money; isn’t that correct? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. Well, they disclose the number of them that are 

not in the money. In other words, they say there are—believe it or 

not, there are a lot of——

Senator FITZGERALD. They’re disclosing the dilution, though, in 

the earnings per share, and they disclose the dilution in the earnings per share of only in the money options. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. That is correct. And that is the rule——

Senator FITZGERALD. And then in the footnote, do they show the 

potential dilution from all the options, not just the ones that are 

currently in the money? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I’m not sure they make the calculation. I can’t 

actually—I think that they do. But I can tell you that in the P&L, 

where they do the earnings per share, they show the dilution of 

stock options that are in the money, and they tell you the number 

of stock options which are not in the money—By the way, as I remember, I just flipped a page and missed it, but I think I’ve got 

it down within a few million. There are 100 million options in the 

money, and 400 million out of the money. I think this shows the 

problem, in fact, in trying to value stock options when they are 

issued. 

Unfortunately, as everyone here knows, stock prices have 

dropped for a lot of tech companies, and a lot of these options are 

way out of the money. 

Mr. HEESEN. They call that super dilution. There have been a lot 

of companies who said they would love to put that information out. 

A couple of business periodicals have actually said, if we could do 

that, that would be fine as an additional part of the disclosure, to 

put in basically the worst case scenario. If tomorrow, every option 

you had was exercised, what would that impact be on your company. 

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. Just going back to Mr. Glassman, you 

are on an advisory board for Intel, right? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. That is correct. 

Senator FITZGERALD. You heard my opening statement where I 

was quoting from Benjamin Graham’s book, ‘‘Security Analysis—’’

Mr. GLASSMAN. A great book. I congratulate you for quoting from 

it. 

Senator FITZGERALD. I haven’t read the whole thing, but I looked 

up the part on what he called stock option warrants. 

Do you agree with him when he said the basic fact about options—he calls them option warrants—is that it represents something which has been taken away from the common stock? The 

equation is a simple one. The value of the common stock, plus the 

value of stock options, equals the value of the common stock alone 

if there were no options. 

57

In other words, if you own a company—let’s say you own 100 

shares of a company and that is all the company has in outstanding shares—you own all of it. All of a sudden the company 

gives me 100 options to buy shares in your company. Something 

has been taken away from you, right? You’re going to share equally 

with me now in the upside participation of any future enhancement 

or rise in the profitability of the company. 

Do you agree with that? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I do agree with it. But what is being taken away 

is something that is extremely contingent and difficult to value. If 

you’re simply giving out warrants, which are things that anybody 

can convert immediately into stock, and that are tradeable in most 

cases, that’s one thing. But if you’re giving me an option which requires me, for example, to stay in the company and not get fired, 

not leave for a number of years, and I don’t know whether the price 

is going to go up or down, that’s something that is contingent, 

which I think is handled quite well, and I think has been for decades——

Senator FITZGERALD. I agree it’s difficult to value, but depreciation is difficult to measure, the wearing out of a useable life of 

plant and equipment, that’s an age old debate, but it nonetheless 

is a real expense to a company. As a capital asset runs out of its 

useful life and approaches obsolescence, the company is actually 

going to have to expend cash to buy new plant and equipment. It 

is a real expense and we do try to capture it. We don’t argue that 

we’ll just ignore that expense and pretend it doesn’t exist, too. The 

same with pension liabilities, amortization of good will or impairment of good will, and the value of derivatives. Those are all difficult questions, aren’t they? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. They are difficult questions, there’s no doubt 

about that. I think, however, that we’re going down exactly the 

wrong road here. What we’re trying to do is take a lot of information, which is, indeed, provided to investors, and shoehorn it into 

one number, which is not going to be an accurate number. 

I don’t think that really helps investors at all. I think the current 

regime actually helps investors a lot more than trying to pluck a 

number out of the air, which is almost certainly going to be inaccurate. All but the back testing has shown that whatever system 

is going to be used is not going to produce accurate numbers. 

That’s the problem. 

What I find somewhat ironic, I know that Mr. Herz has made 

comments in the past about the importance of really getting to 

work at the true challenge for accounting, which is how, in a 

knowledge-based economy, can you provide the proper information 

to investors. I don’t think that proper information is one number 

to represent a very complex phenomenon. 

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. I have a meeting I’m going to go to in 

the anteroom, and I’m now going to turn the questioning over to 

Senator Levin. Then I’m going to try and come back and continue 

on with my questions. 

Senator LEVIN [presiding]. Mr. Glassman, I think you said somebody from the International Accounting Standards Board said he 

would be horrified if Congress acted? 

58

Mr. GLASSMAN. He said he would be horrified. He didn’t say Congress. He said if politicians—I guess he was referring to Congress—in the United States stepped in. 

Senator LEVIN. I thought you said, in introducing that comment, 

said it was FASB that was lobbying us. Did FASB put them up to 

it, the IASB? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I don’t know if they put them up to it, but there 

was a joint conference call which FASB, according to the Wall 

Street Journal, held with a number of institutional investors yesterday. 

You heard from the testimony, obviously, that part of the impetus here is to have a convergence of international accounting standards and U.S. accounting standards——

Senator LEVIN. That’s just stating a position, right? Is that lobbying, what you would call it? If they’re just stating their position 

as to why they’re doing what they’re doing, and we call them in 

front of us today and they gave us their position—I just want to 

find out something else. 

Are you suggesting that FASB somehow or other has urged people to lobby for their rule, because I would like to hear from Mr. 

Herz on that. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I think Mr. Herz will tell you that FASB has at 

least one full-time lobbyist on its—a registered lobbyist on its staff. 

Senator LEVIN. Let’s find out what the lobbying is. 

Mr. Herz is sitting out there. What lobbying do you do? 

Mr. HERZ. Our registered lobbyist is Mr. Mahoney, who is here 

as a staff person to answer your staff’s questions and help prepare 

my testimony. It is to provide people on the Hill and Federal agencies information when they ask——

Senator LEVIN. OK. I just wanted to clear that up. Anyway, Sir 

David Tweedy is on the International Accounting Standards Board. 

The next question. Is the problem that you two have, Mr. Heesen 

and Mr. Glassman, is it mainly on the valuation issue, or if they 

were easily valued, readily valued, would you still object to them 

because they’re such a valuable incentive for folks to join companies and invest their time and so forth? Which is the bigger issue 

for you? 

Mr. HEESEN. We have a fundamental issue with the idea that 

these should be expensed, that these options——

Senator LEVIN. Even if they were easily valued? 

Mr. HEESEN. No. But having said that, under where we are at 

this point, we believe that the valuation issue is extremely important, particularly for young, privately held companies, where it’s almost impossible to come up with a logical number. 

Senator LEVIN. Are you saying it’s more difficult than other 

kinds of valuations which we’ve heard about this afternoon? 

Mr. HEESEN. It’s more difficult, and it’s going to be more costly, 

particularly for small companies. 

Senator LEVIN. More difficult than the convertible bonds and 

long dated stock warrants and all those other things? 

Mr. HEESEN. A young company is not going to be using any of 

those things. It’s great for Cocoa Cola, but we’re not in that boat. 

Senator LEVIN. But it’s more difficult than all the other items 

that are difficult to value that you heard about today? 

59

Mr. HEESEN. All the other things that a small community would 

use at the end of the day are going to get trued up. That’s the important thing. The stock options, you put them out and that valuation is wrong, it’s not going to get trued up at the end of the day. 

You’re going to have to carry it forward with that bad number. 

Senator LEVIN. One easy way to do it is the alternative way of 

valuation. Do you have a problem with that? 

Mr. HEESEN. Yes. As I stated in my statement, intrinsic value is 

not—what we believe, when we looked at it carefully, it is not a 

way, a proper way of doing accounting. 

Senator LEVIN. I was referring to the alternative way which I 

heard at the end of the testimony by Mr. Herz, about small businesses being able to take the same valuation on their books as they 

do on their taxes. 

Mr. HEESEN. That we have not looked at. I have not specifically 

looked at that at this point. 

Senator LEVIN. I thought that was part of your proposal. 

Mr. HEESEN. No. The intrinsic value——

Senator LEVIN. No, something else. 

Mr. Herz, what do you call that alternative approach that you 

were thinking about having small businesses have the option to 

use? Is that the intrinsic value approach? 

Mr. HERZ. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Thank you. Then I’m wrong. The intrinsic 

value approach I guess is what they call that. 

Mr. HEESEN. Exactly. And as I stated in my statement, what 

that does is force you, instead of only once, to go out and get a 

valuation consultant to do this quarterly, so the cost imposed really 

does not make this a choice at all at the end of the day. 

Senator LEVIN. If you were given a choice, if small business were 

given a choice of simply taking the same figure that they take on 

their tax returns and putting it on their own books, would that be 

a problem for you? 

Mr. HEESEN. I don’t know. We would have to look at that. 

Senator LEVIN. Well, it’s been out there for 10 years, Mr. Heesen. 

I’ve been around and around with folks on that issue for 10 years, 

and then people say they’ve got to take a look at it. 

Mr. HEESEN. Well, the difference is——

Senator LEVIN. Logically, is there any problem with that? 

Mr. HEESEN. I don’t know, because tax accounting is very different, as the chairman of FASB said, as opposed to accounting. 

Senator LEVIN. It usually is. But if you’re looking for certainty 

and you want to make sure that no one is trying to figure out how 

to do something in advance which is difficult to assess, then one 

way to do it is to say, OK, we’ll give you a choice. You can either 

take it the complicated way, which you think is a complicated way, 

or you can take it the simple way, which is, if you want a tax deduction for a business expense, show that on your books. That’s 

real simple. 

You’re not telling me that you’re willing to do that? 

Mr. HEESEN. We would have to look at that. I’m not going to say 

that a small business, when they have all these other issues in 

front of them, is going to take that very quickly. I don’t know. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Will you let the Subcommittee know? 

60

1Letter of clarification from Mr. Heesen, dated Apri. 30, 2004, appears in the Appendix on 

page 152. 

Mr. HEESEN. Absolutely.1

Senator LEVIN. Mr. Glassman, do you have a problem with that? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. No. I think that, just as a principle, I think tax 

accounting, and whatever we want to call this reporting accounting, GAAP accounting, ought to be as close as possible to the same 

thing. 

Senator LEVIN. So that if we gave small businesses, let’s say, an 

option of putting the same business expense on their books as they 

take as a tax deduction on their taxes, you would say that makes 

good sense to you? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I guess I would have to answer the question in 

a broader way, which is that tax accounting and GAAP accounting 

should be the same. But I think that would mean we would need 

to look at the entire Tax Code as a result. I think we should, 

but——

Senator LEVIN. I don’t know that we’re going to be able to look 

at the entire Tax Code as a result of looking at one bill. Since 

that’s your general principle, would you apply it here? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. That’s helpful. I think that’s going to be a 

very useful alternative, and I predict to you what the outcome will 

be when we consider that alternative. It will be the same throwing 

up of hands and saying no, we don’t want to do that. That’s even 

worse than what FASB is proposing, because that frequently is a 

bigger number than what FASB is proposing. But I will predict 

right now, Mr. Heesen—I shouldn’t predict your answer, but I look 

forward to your answer with unbaited breath. 

Now, the only reason I say that, by the way, is because I’ve been 

around that track before. About 10 years ago I made that suggestion, and the immediate instinct was hey, that makes sense, and 

then within 24 hours, folks who opposed FASB came back and said 

they’re very much opposed to that. I hope your answer is different. 

Mr. HEESEN. And I’m looking at it from a small business perspective, not from probably the people you were talking about, from the 

bigger companies 10 years ago. 

Senator LEVIN. No, these weren’t the bigger companies. These 

were start-up companies. OK. At any rate, thank you for getting 

back on that. 

The only other question I think I will ask before I ask our Chairman to come back is the numbers, Mr. Glassman, that you gave us, 

and then I would like to talk to Mr. Silvers about the number of 

workers that hold stock options in the private sector. You said one 

in eight employees in the private sector——

Mr. GLASSMAN. Yes. This is in my written testimony. 

Senator LEVIN. It was a Harvard study or something——

Mr. GLASSMAN. You had two Rutgers professors and one Harvard 

professor. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Then it’s a Rutgers study in that case. 

Mr. Silvers, is that your experience at the AFL–CIO, about the 

one in eight? 

61

Mr. SILVERS. That’s about 12 percent. That doesn’t sound off the 

track. The professor, Professor Blasi at Rutgers, is a recognized expert in this area. 

Senator LEVIN. In the one question I have on that study, are 

these people who own stock options as a result of getting them at 

work as part of their compensation? 

Mr Glassman. Yes, sir. It’s part of the compensation stock options. Actually, it’s very interesting because the figure that they 

use is 13 percent. I just made it one out of eight, which is 121⁄2 percent, including 57 percent of workers in computer services, 43 percent of workers in communications, and 27 percent in the finance 

industry. 

Senator LEVIN. And that other figure that you cite, 94 percent of 

options being held by employees below the top levels of management? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. That also comes from the same study. 

Senator LEVIN. What is that level? That’s a much different——

Mr. GLASSMAN. Actually, I don’t know that. 

Mr. SILVERS. Senator, if I might, I think part of the confusion 

here is that the 94 percent number is broad-based plans. If you 

look at all options, I believe the correct number is the National 

Center for Employee Ownership number that Senator Lieberman 

mentioned earlier in the hearing, which is, I guess, about 70 percent of the options that are out there in total, that are issued by 

employers to employees at all levels, are held by the very top level 

of management. 

Senator LEVIN. And do we know how ‘‘top level’’ is defined? 

Mr. SILVERS. I believe in that number—I’m not sure. My guess 

is that number is looking at the SEC disclosing top five executives. 

I may be wrong, though. It may be a slightly larger slice. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I’m pretty sure that is correct. 

Actually, if I could just intervene for a second, you asked me the 

same question you asked Mr. Heesen. I think this would be my answer to your original question, which is more important. I think it’s 

very important that more and more Americans have the opportunity to own stock options and other ways to participate in ownership of the companies that they work for. 

Senator LEVIN. I agree. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I think that’s a great thing, and this——

Senator LEVIN. I think all of us would agree with that. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. Clearly, according to just about everyone who has 

opined on this subject, from whatever position, this will discourage 

that. There is no doubt about that. I think you can take that 

into——

Senator LEVIN. How about grants of stock? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I like grants of stock. The problem with grants 

of stock is that they do not provide as much of an incentive to 

many employees as options, because there’s much more leverage in 

options, obviously. 

Senator LEVIN. Say you have a stock grant that is conditioned 

upon the company reaching certain levels. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I think that’s fine, and I really do believe 

that——

Senator LEVIN. Is that treated as compensation on the books? 

62

Mr. GLASSMAN. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Mr. HEESEN. Yes, it is. 

Senator LEVIN. Sure, it is. So why is this different? They’re both 

valuable. 

By the way, I agree with you. I’m all for stock grants conditioned 

on companies doing well. I think it’s great. I’m a big Aesop man. 

Russell Long taught us about that. I believe in stock options. I 

think it’s fine. The only question is how you account for them, and 

why would we want to account differently for conditional stock 

grants on how a company does and stock options based on how a 

company does? What’s the logic in treating those two things differently? Mr. Glassman. 

I’m stalling here while our Chairman comes in. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. It’s a good question. I guess I would turn the 

question around and say, why do we need to make a change if this 

information is broadly available to investors and anyone else who 

wants to make a decision about valuing a company. It’s all right 

there. By making the change, you are actually going to incent businesses or push businesses into abandoning these programs, which 

are good programs. 

Senator LEVIN. The reason for the change is honest accounting 

according to the Independent Accounting Board. That’s the reason 

for the change. The answer to the question is how do you logically 

treat those two conditional grants differently. In fact, as I understand it, even a grant of a stock option dependent upon whether 

a company does certain things or the stock goes up in value is also 

valued under current law, under current standards. 

The one exception to all these uncertain types of compensation, 

the one exception is stock options. If I tell you, if you will come 

with my company, you’re going to get a thousand shares of stock, 

if you can double the value of this stock within the next 10 years, 

at any time during that 10 years, that grant, conditional as it is, 

uncertain as it is—we don’t know if the company stock is going to 

go up or down or not—but I offer that to you to get you to come 

to my company, to be an executive at my company, that is expensed now. But the stock option isn’t, and there is no logical basis 

that I can see for differentiating there, and there’s no reason why 

we ought to say you get a tax deduction for the expense but you 

don’t have to show the expense on your books. 

Why should we then give a tax deduction? If you want the accounting to be the same, OK, maybe we then ought to say you don’t 

get a tax deduction. Would that then satisfy your rule about keeping tax accounting the same as regular accounting? You don’t get 

a tax deduction? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. Well, the tax deduction doesn’t come until the 

end——

Senator LEVIN. Right. But it’s still not shown as an expense on 

your books. Wouldn’t we then, to follow your rule, say OK, we 

won’t show it as an expense on the books, but we’re not going to 

give you an expense on your taxes, either. That would then be consistent with your generic accounting principle, would it not? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I guess it would. I think those things ought to 

be consistent. But I think the main principle here is that broad 

based stock options have been tremendously beneficial to the U.S. 

63

1 ‘‘The Analyst’s Accounting Observer,’’ appears in the Appendix on page 153. 

economy, whether they’re exactly in concert with this kind of incredibly complex GAAP accounting system we have now, with some 

other instrument or not. They are very valuable in real life to our 

real economy. This measure will cause companies, will certainly 

incent companies, to abandon these programs. 

I must tell you, I don’t think that’s very good. I do think this is 

the responsibility of Congress to examine and to see what it can 

do about it. I don’t think that in any way impairs the independence 

of FASB, not in the least. 

Senator LEVIN. I’m for incentive pay of any kind, frankly. I think 

it does perform a very important economic function, subject to some 

of the qualifications which Mr. Silvers put out there, too, where the 

main beneficiaries are, depending upon how you incentivize it. But 

I happen to agree with the principle that incentive pay is a good 

thing, but that is the only form of incentive pay which is treated 

the way it is. That makes no sense——

Mr. GLASSMAN. Well, maybe all the other ones should be treated 

the same way that options are, because I think, as public policy, 

we want to encourage this. We really do. We don’t want to encourage companies to be sloppy and to take undue risks and to do all 

sorts of other things, so we would have to watch it. But in general, 

we want to encourage this kind of practice, and this will discourage 

it. That’s my only message. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. 

Senator FITZGERALD [presiding]. Senator Levin, thank you for 

covering for me. 

I now would ask for unanimous consent—and I will grant it to 

myself—to introduce Mr. Ciesielski’s April 2004 Analyst’s Accounting Observer Report into the record.1

You developed tables, and one table shows the 50 companies 

whose unreported stock compensation caused earnings to be overstated by 10 percent or more, ranked by descending order of overstatement. 

The company which most overstated its earnings was Yahoo!. It 

overstated its earnings by 640 percent. You derived that calculation 

by looking at their earnings per share as reported, which was 37 

cents per share in 2003, but if they had expensed, I assume, using 

the Black-Scholes model—is that right? 

Mr. CIESIELSKI. I believe that’s what they used. Only a handful 

had used other than binomial, and I can remember those. 

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. If they expensed their stock option 

compensation, their earnings per share would have been reduced 

from 37 cents a share to 5 cents a share. So their overstatement 

of their earnings to the public was 640 percent. That’s a pretty 

whopping deception in my judgment. 

But when you think about it, I noticed just looking last night on 

the computer, it looked like Yahoo! was now selling at a trailing 

12-month PE of 128, which is a humongous PE. But that PE assumes that their real earnings were their reported earnings. If one 

looks at their real earnings as their earnings as reported minus an 

expense item for stock option compensation—if I were to do the 

math on their closing price at December 31, their closing price was 

64

$45.03, and their earnings per share were 5 cents a share—then 

their PE at December 31, 2003 looks to me to have been 900. So 

am I correct, that investors would be paying $900 to get a claim 

to one dollar’s worth of earnings? 

Mr. CIESIELSKI. That’s the linear math, yes. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Am I doing that——

Mr. CIESIELSKI. I think you’re doing that correctly. I don’t have 

a calculator to verify, but it sounds like it’s in the ballpark. 

EVENING SESSION [6 p.m.] 

Senator FITZGERALD. Now, going back, Mr. Glassman, to where 

we were talking about—you said you agreed with Benjamin Graham’s analysis, that the value of common stock plus options equals 

the value of common stock if there were no options. 

Let’s assume the new FASB rule does deter companies from 

issuing as many options. Let’s assume it deters them from issuing 

options altogether and a company like Yahoo! stops issuing options. 

I don’t think that will happen. I think they will just start expensing them and be more discreet about issuing them. They won’t be 

gorging themselves on stock options any more. 

Going back to that company that you and I talked about that had 

100 shares, and you own all the shares, and we no longer give 100 

options to me or anybody else in your company. Then aren’t your 

100 shares in your company worth more because you’re back to 

having a 100 percent claim on the future earnings of your company, and you’re not giving options to participate in the future appreciation to anyone else? Wouldn’t your shares be worth more? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. Well, except for the fact that my company, the 

company whose shares I own, would not have been able to attract 

the kind of people that Yahoo! has attracted, that Microsoft has attracted, that Intel has attracted, that Dell has attracted, because 

of employee broad-based stock options. I mean, this is the reason 

these options are offered. They are offered to attract really good 

people. I think anyone in Silicon Valley will tell you——

Senator FITZGERALD. Where are these employees going to go, 

though, in the new world where the same accounting rules apply 

to everybody? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I hope the new world is competitive so that we 

don’t have converging—we could do that with the tax codes, too. 

Can I just comment on what Mr. Ciesielski’s work——

Senator FITZGERALD. But isn’t it possible your stock price could 

go up because now there’s no longer these options out there diluting you? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. Maybe. It really depends on what investors 

think. If all of a sudden Yahoo! said ‘‘well, we’re giving up our 

stock options; we don’t think they’re going to work’’, investors may 

feel well, that’s fine, so now the value is higher or it’s the same. 

But they may get very distressed by it and say, well, that happens, 

and then Google is going to take all the good people that Yahoo! 

had. 

This issue of Mr. Ciesielski’s work, where he found the 640 percent overstatement, the information that he got, I’m pretty sure, is 

public information. Every investor, every smart analyst like Mr. 

Ciesielski, is——

65

Senator FITZGERALD. But he had to spend a lot of time and he 

has been a life time professional doing this. Do you think the average guy could do this? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. Well, guess what? He just published it. So one 

would expect that other people then get the information. It’s the 

way markets work. 

Senator FITZGERALD. They pay him. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. According to your theory, that would drive the 

price of this stock down to virtually nothing, or certainly about a 

sixth of its value. But the fact is people already know about this. 

Senator FITZGERALD. I think you’re right, and that’s why I don’t 

think stock prices will necessarily go down. In fact, I think they 

may go up because the shareholders of Yahoo! will then get all of 

the future rise in the value of the company which inherently belongs to them anyway. They won’t have to give a part of their stake 

in the future of the company to anyone else, so I think their stock 

could actually go up. 

Let’s go back to Mr. Heesen. Initially you said the longer a company stays artificially in the red—I don’t agree with you that it’s 

artificially in the red; I think it’s artificially in the black when you 

are bringing them to the market now, and I think we will have a 

more accurate picture once the FASB rules go into effect. But you 

said it will take longer to bring them public. 

But don’t you think that I should be, as a government policy 

maker, concerned not just about the venture capitalists—who want 

to unload their investment on the public, close out their fund, and 

make a big return—but about the people out there who are going 

to buy the shares in this company that you’re going to try to unload 

on them? 

Mr. HEESEN. Absolutely. If you look at the venture-backed companies versus nonventure-backed companies on NASDAQ, they 

have traditionally done much better. So if you’re going to be looking at companies between whether they’re venture backed or not 

venture backed——

Senator FITZGERALD. Over how long a period? 

Mr. HEESEN. That’s been historical for 20 or 30 years, since the 

venture capital industry has been in existence by and large. 

Senator FITZGERALD. They’ve done better than other companies 

for how long, though, after they’ve gone public? 

Mr. HEESEN. They have consistently gone—going out, and long 

run, because they are——

Senator FITZGERALD. Twenty, 30 years down the road companies 

that had venture capitalists at the start? 

Mr. HEESEN. When you look at the Federal Expresses, the Cisco’s, the Intels, the entire buyer technology industry, literally has 

all been financed by venture capital at one point or another. Those 

are the companies that are driving this economy and continue to 

drive it. 

Just this quarter, you look at the venture-backed IPOs that went 

out, there were 13 venture-backed IPOs. One of those was the biggest venture-backed IPO ever that went public in the United 

States. Unfortunately, it’s a Chinese semiconductor company, so 

that’s how we’re starting to see the changes here, and that company is giving options and it’s going to be a very effective company. 

66

And you know what? All the institutional investors like that company and they’re putting money into it and it’s doing very well 

right now. That’s kind of where we’re going in this environment. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Mr. Delves, you looked like you had your 

hand up. 

Mr. DELVES. Yes, thank you. I wanted to make a comment on the 

discussion you were having with Mr. Glassman. You were debating 

the cost to shareholders of stock options versus the benefits to 

shareholders of the incentive provided by options. That debate can’t 

happen and doesn’t happen, and hasn’t happened, in board rooms 

because there’s no expense for stock options. 

With an expense for stock options, boards of directors can now 

start having that debate and balance the cost versus benefits to 

shareholders. 

Mr. HEESEN. I would disagree on that from a small company perspective, in the respect that venture capitalists happily dilute their 

ownership in a company, and knowingly do that, to give those options to employees, because they know at the end of the day those 

companies are going to grow as a result of it. 

Senator FITZGERALD. But it also, as you said, allows you to bring 

a company to an IPO sooner. 

Mr. HEESEN. Yes, but also, if you look at——

Senator FITZGERALD. So you have a good reason to suffer that dilution because, otherwise, you might have to hold on to it longer. 

Mr. HEESEN. Yes, but as a Harvard study 2 years ago put out, 

a venture backed company actually takes longer to go public than 

a nonventure backed company, contrary to popular belief. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Now, I know venture capitalists all over the 

country; I know people in the Texas Pacific Group out West; I know 

the Madison Dearborn Partners people in my State. I know Ned 

Heiser, who brought——

Mr. HEESEN. Most of the buyouts are not venture capital, 

but——

Senator FITZGERALD [continuing]. Federal Express public many 

years ago. And I know Thayer Capital, the Carlyle Group, and so 

forth. The venture capitalists I have talked to from the Midwest 

and the East have had a different approach than those coming 

from the Silicon Valley area—the Kleiner, Perkins of the world—

that are very heavily invested in high tech. I do think there’s a big 

difference between the midwestern venture capitalists. They are 

simply not as concerned about the expensing of stock options as the 

ones out West, based on——

Mr. HEESEN. Well, I think that’s a definitional issue, in that venture capital in the Midwest is more buyouts, to be perfectly honest, 

than it is true venture capital. 

The other unfortunate thing there is when you look at a Milken 

study that just came out last week, you look at where they are 

looking at, where are the next science and technology centers in 

the country are going to be, and they rated each State. In the Midwest, there was only one State in the Midwest, Minnesota, that 

broke the top 20, in the ability to attract companies that are 

science and technology based to their States. Maybe there is something that the middle part of the country should be looking at, that 

the East coast and West coast have been. 

67

Senator FITZGERALD. Clearly, there is a much greater reliance on 

options in the high tech industry. The overstatement of the earnings of the top 100 NASDAQ firms, last year was 44 percent, I 

think it was. 

Mr. CIESIELSKI. I didn’t do that study. 

Senator FITZGERALD. No, I think that was Bear Sterns’ analysts 

who did that study. It’s high tech firms primarily and a few other 

industries that rely so heavily on options. 

Going back to Jeffrey Skilling’s testimony, who brought up the 

Skilling’s testimony? Mr. Silvers, I’ll let you comment on this. 

I remember him testifying. We were talking about how the executives at Enron, the top 29 executives cashed out a billion one 

in options in the 3 years before the company’s stock collapsed and 

it filed for bankruptcy, and there was a pattern that I detected of 

executives cashing in their options and then leaving the company. 

Remember the Army Secretary, Tom White, he cashed out his options and left? The fellow who committed suicide, unfortunately, 

Frank Baxter, he cashed out his options and had left the company? 

Skilling, of course, cashed out $70 million in options in 1991, and 

then left the company in July or August. Ken Lay cashed out about $250 million in options and had lined 

up a job apparently as the CEO of another company. He had to 

come back as CEO at Enron because otherwise he was left holding 

the bag. 

The one who blew the whistle in the Enron case, came forward, 

they had made a mistake. They allowed an executive into Fastow’s 

office who didn’t have stock options. Her name was Sharon Watkins. She wrote that famous memo, ‘‘I ain’t getting nothing out of 

this. Why am I going to go along with the deception?’’ Implying 

that everyone else was going along with the deception. It was a 

very simple Ponzi operation and the company was borrowing 

money and booking it as earnings. Almost all their transactions 

boiled down to that, and they parked the borrowings on off-thebooks partnerships, but they would borrow money and book it as 

earnings. They had very little in the way of legitimate operations 

that I could tell. 

They were doing this, in my judgment, because they were getting 

very rich very quickly, pumping up their share prices, cashing in 

their options, and then they leave the company before the whole 

house of cards collapsed. 

We were talking to Skilling about the options and the fact that 

they were taking tax deductions for it, that they were just gorging 

themselves on stock options, and that there is no expense being reported for that so their earnings were grossly overstated, just by 

virtue of their failure to expense options. Skilling came right back 

at us and said, I agree, the accounting rules are absurd, but it’s 

Congress that interfered with FASB that allowed that to go on, so 

you should be looking in the mirror. 

Now, I wasn’t in the Senate when that happened. Senator 

Lieberman was leading the fight against FASB back in those days. 

Believe me, we met with a lot of ordinary shareholders who really 

got taken in by that whole scam. They lost all their life savings, 

and all the employees who had been encouraged by company executives to keep buying Enron stock and tucking it into their 401(K) 

68

plan, they lost everything. A lot of people lost everything on that. 

A lot of that was due to the incentives of the excessive issuance of 

options, in my judgment. 

Mr. Silvers. 

Mr. SILVERS. Senator, let me say that in the AFL–CIO I represented a number of those people who were the victims of that situation, who were left with nothing but severance, and not even 

that. We were very proud to do that. I think they would have a 

view on some of these discussions. 

There are systematic reasons why options tended the direction 

you indicated. This is why in the brief formal testimony I gave I 

indicated we feel that options are an inferior form of executive compensation. It’s not just that the accounting is not correct; it’s that 

substantively they’re not a good form of executive compensation. 

The reason is—and some of the reasons are fixable, meaning that 

the typical executive stock option is a three-vesting period, historically. Some of that is changing right now. That could be changed 

easily. That 3-year period makes it pretty easy to cash out and 

leave. To manage the company with an eye towards maximizing 

your cash out at that moment, it’s a pretty bad thing from the perspective of a pension fund that’s holding the company long term. 

But there are other aspects of stock options that simply cannot 

be fixed in relation to this problem, which is why we favor restricted stock as a means of linking—long-term restricted stock as 

a means of linking paid performance. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Explain the difference between restricted 

stock and stock options. 

Mr. SILVERS. Restricted stock is simply stock in the company. It 

is not an option. It is only the upside. You have the full exposure 

to the upside and the downside. The restrictions around restricted 

stock are similar and can be stronger than those associated with 

options, restrictions in terms of when you can sell it, in terms of 

vesting periods and so forth. 

The critical difference here is that when an executive is not exposed——

Senator FITZGERALD. If you have restricted stock, then you don’t 

just have a call on the future price. 

Mr. SILVERS. Precisely. You have——

Senator FITZGERALD. If the stock goes down—it’s a two-way elevator. 

Mr. SILVERS. A two-way elevator, exactly. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. No, it’s exactly the opposite. If you’re given restricted stock—anybody can buy stock, and then there’s a downside. But the way restricted stock works is that you are given the 

stock. So let’s say you’re given the stock at $20, you pay zero, usually, and now it goes down to $15, now you’ve got $15, which you 

never had before. That’s the difference. 

In fact, if the stock price goes down and you’ve got an option, 

you’ve got zero. 

Senator FITZGERALD. So it’s really no better than options, except 

that it does have to be expensed. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. It’s not better. It’s not worse. It’s a choice. With 

options, basically you’re getting more leverage. In other words, if 

it goes up, you make a lot more. If it goes down, you make nothing. 

69

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. What’s the public policy rationale for 

requiring issuance of restricted stock to be expensed but not the 

issuance of stock options? 

Mr. HEESEN. In our view, it’s pay for—in restricted stock, it 

doesn’t matter. You get it today at $20, you’ve got $20, and if it 

goes down to $10, you still have $10. If you work a little hard, it 

might get up to $30. But if you have an option, you have nothing 

until——

Senator FITZGERALD. But we require the issuance of restricted 

stock to be expensed because we recognize we’re taking away something from the company. 

Mr. HEESEN. You are taking from the company at that point, exactly. That’s a very different thing than an option. 

Senator FITZGERALD. You don’t think they’re taking anything 

from the shareholders? 

Mr. HEESEN. Dilution, absolutely. And we talk about that, and 

that’s why when we look at this, we look at shareholder dilution 

as being the main key here. 

Mr. SILVERS. Senator, these gentleman are simply wrong. Let me 

explain why, if they will allow me to do so without being interrupted. 

Senator FITZGERALD. OK. You go ahead. 

Mr. SILVERS. As a shareholder, you care a great deal if your company is in trouble, whether at the end of the day the value of your 

stock—for example, say you bought it at $40. If the company is in 

trouble, you care a great deal about whether or not at the end of 

the day the stock price is $10, $20 or $30. It makes a big difference. 

If you hold an option and the exercise price is at $40, and the 

company gets in trouble, you don’t care. It’s true that options involve a lot of leverage, and perhaps leverage is a good thing. That’s 

a public policy decision that I disagree with. But what they’re 

wrong about is that options are a better of way of aligning the interests of executives with the interests of shareholders in a 

stressed situation, which is what Enron was. The reason why options encourage people to cheat and lie in distressed situations is 

because financially, if they can somehow get the stock price over 

the exercise price, they win. And it doesn’t matter to them if the 

true value of the company——

You see, if the true value of the company is, say, 30, and it’s 

trading—they know it’s 30 and they’re insiders—and it’s trading at 

40, they have got to figure out some way to get that thing over 40 

long enough to exercise. If they do that, they win. 

Senator FITZGERALD. And then they dump the stock. 

Mr. SILVERS. Yes. But even if the strategy they have for getting 

it over 40 is so risky, that it’s actually money losing—for instance, 

cheating, that’s very risky. If you’re caught cheating, things tend 

to collapse completely and all the value drains out of the firm. 

WorldCom, for example, is a classic instance of this. There was 

real value in WorldCom. They cheated and they blew it up. This 

is why stock options are so dangerous to our corporate governance 

system as opposed to restricted stock. 

I would like to also add another point here, which is again——

70

Senator FITZGERALD. And you favor the FASB rules that impose 

discipline on their issuance. You don’t favor doing away with the 

stock options? 

Mr. SILVERS. What we favor is the replacement—I think there 

are unique issues involved in private companies, in their transition 

issues, and I think those are complex and the FASB process ought 

to deal with them. 

In terms of public companies, we favor restricted stock over 

options. We don’t favor banning options as a statutory matter. We 

believe that if they are properly accounted for, that the corporate 

governance process will act to reduce their use and substitute restricted stock for them. In fact, that is what is going on right now. 

Senator I would also add, if you will allow me, that a great deal 

has been made in this debate of two points by the opponents of 

stock options expensing. One point is the notion that the information is already there and so it’s not necessary. The other point is 

the notion that, if it’s expensed, somehow managerial practices in 

relation to options will change radically, particularly with respect 

to broad-based options at companies that are cash limited. 

You can’t hold those two positions simultaneously. Either one or 

the other has to be true. Both cannot be. If you believe that the 

one that’s true is that there will be radical managerial behavior 

changes as a result of option expensing, what you’re actually saying is that the current accounting rules, and what some would urge 

the public policy and law of the United States should be, is that 

we will, by hiding the true cost of stock options, subsidize that form 

of employee compensation. And some arguments have been put forward for why we should subsidize them. 

I would suggest that if we’re subsidizing employee compensation, 

we might not want to focus on a form of compensation 70 percent 

of which is going to the top five officers, and that perhaps we might 

want to look at things like the 40 million Americans who have no 

health care if we were in the business of subsidizing one form of 

employee compensation over another. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Mr. Heesen, do you personally own any 

stock options in any companies? 

Mr. HEESEN. No. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Mr. Glassman. 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I have to say that I made a very lucrative deal 

with my partner, the former Chairman of the SEC, Arthur Levitt, 

when we were partners in Roll Call, which is a congressional newspaper. It is not a publicly traded company, but my incentive was, 

indeed, options. I had options to buy shares of the company, which 

originally Arthur owned most of, and I did so, and we eventually 

sold the company. 

I can tell you that the spur of options was quite substantial to 

me. I think it was very important. I certainly can sympathize with 

people, with the 14 million Americans who own stock options. I 

think it’s a good thing. 

By the way, I just want to be clear, Mr. Silvers, I am not wrong. 

The reason that I intervened was because you were saying something that was incorrect about restricted stock. In fact, if you get 

restricted stock and the price goes down, you lose whatever the 

71

price decline was, but if you get options and the price goes down, 

you get nothing. That’s the whole point. 

I absolutely did not say—and I’m not sure whether Mr. Heesen 

did—I absolutely did not say that I prefer one over the other. Quite 

the contrary. I think that those are decisions that need to be made 

by businesses themselves, their boards of directors and their shareholders: What is the best way to compensate employees. Sometimes 

it’s restricted stock; sometimes, as in the case of Warren Buffett, 

whose stock I own——

Senator FITZGERALD. But you favor accounting rules that would 

prefer stock options to any other form of compensation? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I think that’s another—I think that’s a different 

issue. 

Senator FITZGERALD. You don’t think the accounting rules should 

be neutral, though. You believe that all employee compensation 

should be expensed, except stock options, correct? 

Mr. GLASSMAN. I think that the current regime, which handles 

the very thorny issue of how to value stock options, by providing 

investors with the kind of information I just showed from the Intel 

statement and for just about any other statement you want to look 

at, is the best way to do it. That is my belief right now, and that 

we don’t need this change. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Mr. Delves, very quickly, and then I will 

have to adjourn the hearing. I absolutely have to leave. 

Mr. DELVES. Thank you very much. 

My point is that it is not this simple. This is what I do for a living, as I design incentives. Stock options work. They make people 

take more risks than they ordinarily would. If you grant too many 

of them, they take too many risks. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Performance stock options are better, 

though, right? 

Mr. DELVES. Anything tied to performance is better, including restricted stock. 

Senator FITZGERALD. But we require performance stock options 

to be expensed, but not ones that are not tied to performance? 

Mr. DELVES. That’s correct. 

Senator FITZGERALD. So sometimes the stock options that maybe 

come into money just because the economy is good and the market 

is going up, it’s like rewarding the weatherman because the weather turns out well. 

Mr. DELVES. If we don’t have an expense, we can’t make the 

tradeoffs between one type of incentive versus another and come up 

with the best one. 

Senator FITZGERALD. Thank you. All of you have been wonderful 

witnesses. You have been great, and I wish we could have had another hour, but we do not. 

The record will remain open until the close of business next 

Tuesday, April 27, for any additional statements or questions. 

If there is no further business to come before the Subcommittee, 

this hearing is now adjourned. Thank you all very much. 

[Whereupon, at 6:25 p.m., the Subcommittee adjourned.] 

(73)

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Æ


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