Cancellation of Executive Stock Options: Tax and Accounting Income Considerations*
加拿大企业面临报告更高会计收入与支付更低税收之间的权衡，它们可以取消价内高管股票期权，代之以现金支付。本文利用内幕交易数据，实证检验了企业在决定取消期权时同时考虑税收和财务报告成本。
Abstract Canadian firms face a trade‐off between reporting higher accounting income and paying lower taxes that arises from their ability to cancel in‐the‐money executive stock options and making a substitute cash payment to the executive instead of issuing shares. Firms' trade‐off hypotheses are operationalized in a multilateral framework and empirically tested using insider‐trading data. The multilateral approach is designed to control for the incentive effects of alternative compensation schemes and to determine the cancellation payment that keeps the executive indifferent between receiving cash or shares. The results show that firms consider both taxes and financial reporting costs in determining their option cancellation behavior.