Stock options expensing to be delayed

A House vote in the US on July 20 has quashed the proposed expensing of stock options by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). A number of industry bodies in the US ? notably the IT industry ? have been lobbying for the dismantling of FASB?s expensing proposals; they have clearly succeeded. The legislation, HR 3574, would require that only those options granted to the top five officers of a corporation be expensed and options granted to other employees would require footnote notation only. Further, the expensing model required under the legislation would use zero as the volatility factor in the equation.