How are employee stock options taxed?
How are employee stock options taxed?, The tax treatment of employee stock remuneration plans depends upon the type of plan, its structure   MORE

Should CEOs No Longer Be Granted Stock Options?
Author Jim Collins talks to Steve Inskeep as part of the Morning Edition occasional series Fixes. Collins says that by making CEOs buy company stock with their own money, they will have more incentive to manage for the long term and make the types of decisions that lead to job growth.   MORE

We recently launched our fourth annual survey covering the entire gamut of issues faced by companies while designing and managing Equity compensation plans. Over the years we have added newer questions with respect to regulatory changes, administrative practices, accounting changes, coverage of overseas employees and so on.
I am pleased to see increasing level of participation from companies. This year record number of 115 companies participated in the survey. Since the survey aims at tracking Indian trends we requested only Indian companies to participate. Indian subsidiaries of foreign companies were not a part of this survey.
This year’s findings throw up some very interesting data points : Read to know more

Settlement of Options
Cash settled :
In this case the Options, on exercise are settled by paying the valued of the option to the employee in cash. Example of Cash settled options are Phantom stocks. These are used by unlisted / private companies whose shares are not traded or those companies who do not wish to dilute the equity. Here the employee usually does not pay to exercise his options. He only gets the appreciation in cash

Equity settled :
These options are settled by issue of Equity. Here the employee has to pay the exercise price to get shares. ESOPs in India are usually equity settled.