Thanks Elias. So, it almost sounds like - "you can only give stock options to service (union) workers now (say factory workers earning say less than 60K)". Comrad's unit.
or i could be cynical. I think they fail to realise that the strategic goal of equity (especially during startup phase) (as well as all the aligning strategic goals stuff...blah blah blah) is not possible on the same scale for everyone. Not saying it wouldn't be nice, but equity is an expensive form of finance for a business (all be it one that the founders have ready access to and a large degree of control over). One of the hardest things as a founder is always balancing how much and when to give away that precious equity. You want to spend it only when you are going to get an above average return (ie. early phases, or establishing phases where you going to ask staff to put in 150% efforts, but want to offset the penalty fee's ie. overtime etc to a later stage using equity, plus offer a multiplier effect for staff to want to give 150% ie. they are giving up time with family, contributing valuable ideas into the organisation etc). If you have an organisation engaged in raising capital (fund raising), most founders themselves have to subscribe to options. Without any detailed guidelines from the ATO this could be a real mess. ie. raise 2 million (say for a 20% share), founder gets say 1M share options that vest over 2 years with a value (on paper say) of $10M (whatever), you could pay $100K's of tax, and have no income, money etc for years ? Would this be a correct understanding? What about dilution over time ? This sounds like it isn't even being taxed as captial gains but as income tax (so you can't offset against other capital gains over time). And do you then still have a capital gains tax on top of this. If you applied this same logic to options trading, its almost sounds like : you purchase share options on the stock exchange, they tax you at your marginal rate for what you pay for the options, then when you sell it you pay tax again on the profit (capital gain). What is ironic is they want to spend 10's of Billions on NBN, so we can develop "next generation businesses" here, but then we remove access to a vital instrument used elsewhere to build those next generation businesses in this country. Also, it seems that it may effect you if you are considered "resident for tax purposes" but work for say a US based company. You will be paying tax on US options (in US dollars). What effect would this then have on companies say with a head office/ salesoffice in the US, but still send the development work back to OZ? Is it time again to reconsider the silicon beach lobby group, now there seems to be a very well defined set of issues to lobby about ? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia/browse_thread/thread/99938a0fbc691eeb To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
