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Executive Compensation

By Stephen W. Skonieczny
June 27, 2005

It's no secret that for some time now, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), institutional investors and shareholder services have all been dissatisfied with the opaqueness of required executive compensation disclosure in Proxy Statements under Item 402 of Regulation S-K. In fact, the SEC may soon consider revising the executive compensation disclosure rules, at least in respect of certain types of compensation disclosure that are viewed by critics of current disclosure compliance as particularly lacking in transparency and detail.

It's also no surprise that Congress enacted Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code to address the long-standing frustration of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) efforts to: 1) contain the proliferation of deferred compensation; 2) regulate how compensation may and may not be deferred; and 3) dictate what was “good” deferred compensation and what was, in the view of the IRS, a “bad” deferral or, put more technically, received, either constructively, under the so-called “economic benefit” doctrine or pursuant to some other theory of “receipt” or “benefit.” The IRS also weighed in recently with Notice 2005-1, providing some limited guidance to taxpayers.

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