Dana Rohrabacher: “Entrepreneurship and employee ownership as well. I rise in support of H.R. 5719, the Empowering Employees through Stock…”

“Entrepreneurship and employee ownership as well. I rise in support of H.R. 5719, the Empowering Employees through Stock Ownership Act, a bill that will allow certain employee recipients of employer stock to defer paying income tax on the stock until they are able to liquidate a portion of the stock to pay those taxes or once 7 years have passed, whichever comes first. This is a modest but meaningful step in the right direction. It is a modest and meaningful step toward transforming our economy into an ownership society where employees are empowered with a direct and enduring stake in the well-being of their company. I applaud Representative Paulsen for offering this legislation and Chairman Brady for shepherding it through his committee and onto the floor. As you may know, Mr. Speaker, I have a bill that was crafted in the same spirit as this bill that we are considering today. It is a bill that, in my view, should be this body's next step, after this step forward, toward creating an ownership society. My bill, the Expanding Employee Ownership Act of 2016, which is H.R. 4577, would permanently exempt from income tax liability any stock that was received by employees as part of a broad-based distribution to all employees, so long as the employees held on to the stock for 5 years. If the employee holds the stock for 10 years or more, after that, a mechanism is triggered that allows the employees to sell their stock free of capital gains tax.…”