 | Meet Janine (Rep. John Doolittle, R-CA-4)
Janine Valdivieso, 48, grew up in Southern California, and now works as a Child-Support Collections Officer in North-Eastern California. Janine is married, has three daughters, and lives in the Auburn area. After she married her husband, Joe, she began saving for college tuition for their two youngest daughters, and setting aside money for their retirement fund. More... |  | Meet Norma (Rep. Pete Stark, D-CA-13)
Norma Mogilefsky, 59, grew up in New York, has a master’s degree in special education, and currently works as a curriculum developer at a software company. She is a single mom with two grown children. Throughout her life, she worked hard to raise her family, pay the bills, and build perfect credit. She hoped to retire in June. More... |  | Meet Judy (Rep. Tom Lantos, D-CA-12)
Judy Pace, 48, grew up in the Bay Area, has two daughters in college, and currently works as a benefits administrator at Equinix. Five years ago, she took a job in human resources at a small startup company called BroadVision, and worked long hours to ensure its success. The company did well, and grew to nearly 2000 employees. Having had no college education, Judy was proud of her accomplishments and that, thanks to the BroadVision incentive stock options (ISOs), she had managed to secure a financial future for herself and her two daughters. More... |  | Meet Robert (Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA-30)
In 1998, Robert Allan accepted a job offer with a compensation package that included stock options to offset a salary that was lower than what he had earned at his previous job. When the company was purchased a year later, Robert was laid off. In order not to lose his vested options, Robert exercised and sold some of his shares in 1999, and exercised the rest in 2000. More... |  | Meet Bill (Rep. Ralph Hall, R-TX-4)
William Rinehart works for Nortel Networks, one of the many high technology companies in the Denver, Colorado area. In year 2000 William exercised and held ISO stock options. Though he never sold the stock, his Federal AMT tax bill for year 2000 was 122% of his taxable income! His taxable income was $213,277 and he owes $64,831 in “regular?federal income tax and $259,118 in AMT taxes. That’s 152% of his taxable income going to the federal tax coffers. More... |  | Meet Joe (Rep. Virgil Goode, R-VA-5)
Joe Page became the very first employee of a company called Value America on April Fool’s Day 1996, and made very little money for the first few years. By 1999, the company became the 3rd-largest e-tailer. On the advice of financial advisors from Arthur Andersen and KPMG, he took out a loan for $200,000 and spent most of his savings to exercise all of his vested shares just prior to the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in April 1999. More... |  | Meet Melinda (Rep. Eric Cantor, R-VA-7)
Melinda Utz, 36, was working as an office manager for F5 Networks in Seattle, WA. She had never before been exposed to Incentive Stock Options, and could not even imagine a tax imposed on money she never made. She never even imagined that the stock options would become a real income opportunity. She focused on exercising options as soon as she was able, so that the clock would begin to tick and mean the difference between long and short-term capital gains. When her CPA gave her the bad news, she couldn’t believe it. His only advise: “Who can you borrow from?” Like most of us, she did not know anyone who had a spare $23,000 on hand ready for her to borrow. Even banks turned her down because she didn’t own a home and had an outstanding student loan. She borrowed $5,000 from her mother who took the money from their 401K and are now paying penalties as a result. More... |  | Meet Jerry and Barbara (Rep. Sam Johnson, R-TX-3)
Jerry and Barbara Cornelius live in Richardson, Texas where Jerry owns and manages Canyon Creek Art & Frame. In April of 1999, Barbara joined Avanex Corporation and accepted a lower salary in lieu of an Incentive Stock Option grant. She was unfamiliar with ISOs but it was explained to her that someday the company might go public and that the stock could potentially provide a small gain or contribute nicely to a retirement fund. More... |  | Meet Jason (Rep. Anna Eschoo, D-CA-14)
Jason Baker started working for BroadVision four years ago in his first job after college. He quickly turned a temporary job into a permanent position, with the responsibility of starting up the company's Purchasing Department. More... |  | Meet Jonathan (Rep. Steve Isreal, D-NY-2)
Jonathan Palahnuk of Long Island, NY was one of the first dozen employees of Metromedia Fiber Network in January of 1997. As one of the four employees who stayed with the company, he was given incentive stock options. "I'd always considered my stock options to be my delayed compensation for all the hard work and endless hours I contributed to make the company grow." Rather than cash in on the immediate value of the ISO shares, Jonathan did some research and followed the common advice to hold his options for a year to preserve the most equity. He even found one reference that mentioned the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) but it didn't explain any of the situations he would soon be facing. More... |  | Meet Don and Ginny (Rep. Robert J. Wittman, R-VA-1)
Don Nicholas is a 20 year military veteran now working in a growing telecommunications outsourcing company. His wife, Ginny, teaches pre-school part-time while taking care of their 8 year old son. Living in a suburb of Washington, D.C. their biggest concern was saving for their son's college tuition, and their own retirement on their middle income, five-figure salary. That concern is no longer a priority and has been replaced by a concern for survival after facing a $207,000.00 tax bill in 2000. More... |  | Meet the Delore Family (Rep. Pete Stark, D-CA-13)
I owe $420,000 of Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) on under $5,000 of actual income derived from the sale of frightfully deflated Incentive Stock Options (ISOs), and the IRS's aggressive and unchecked collection activities threaten to destroy my peace of mind and ruin my family. More... |  | Meet Angela Hartley (Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-CA-52)
I have been living a nightmare for the past 6 years that only gets worse as time goes on. I ended up owing over 3 times my annual income, with no way to pay it since my stock was worth far less when I sold it. The IRS will not accept less than the full amount due, with interest and penalties accruing. Under their guidelines, they have no choice but to take everything. More... |  | Meet the Speltz Family (Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-IA-2)
We are living in a house we can no longer afford but can't sell. We can no longer contribute to 401ks or college funds for our children. We can't afford the little things in life as this tax has taken us from a middle class life and forced us into bankruptcy. More... |  | Meet the Pritchett Family (Rep. Melissa Bean, D-IL-8)
I live and work in Illinois. In the year 2000, my ISOs were eligible to be exercised, so, following the advice of a “financial expert”, my wife and I exercised the options and held the stock. More... |  | Meet the Pavlosky Family (Rep. Nick Lampson, D-TX-22)
The IRS seized all liquid assets in 2003, leaving this family with $25 in a checking account with 3 small children, including a newborn, at home. Then, the IRS levied James' wages from 2003-2005 leaving $1450 per month to feed, cloth and pay the mortgage and other expenses for this family of 5. More... |  | Meet Art and Rita Miller (Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD-7)
Rita worked as an Administrative Assistant back in 2000. The Millers are nearing retirement, with Art now 61 and Rita 62. More... |  | Meet the Kadillak's (Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY-14)
Tony and Jennifer, a young couple from Montana, were hit in early 2001 by ISO AMT. They now have two children (2 years old and 5 months old) and live in New York (2 yrs, 5 mos). More... |  | Meet Leroy and Janis (Rep. Mike Honda, D-CA-15)
Leroy and Janis are a couple in Ben Lomand, CA who lost everything to the IRS based on AMT taxes on worthless ISO stock options. They never made a single penny. More... |  | Meet the Gottesfeld Family (Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-MA-5)
David Gottesfeld works for EMC Corporation as a lab technician. His wife, Judy, is a hospital aid. David and Judy were hit with ISO-AMT, a tax law they were completely unaware of. In fact, David had never heard of AMT until then. More... |  | Meet Lyles and Naomi (Rep. David Wu, D-OR-1)
Lyles, an Air Force veteran, worked for a high tech company for 11 years and was laid off in 1999. This forced him to exercise his options whose inflated value dropped drastically less than a year later, resulting in ISO-AMT liability greater than their net worth. More... |  | Meet the Lapaglia family (Rep. John R, Carter, R-TX-31)
We have worked for everything we acquired, and have not been extravagant spenders. We went from thinking we were on our way to having a decent retirement after struggling for 20 years to living the last 7 years under the constant stress of what is going to happen to us and how are we going to survive. More... |  | Meet the Garners (Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-CA-22)
A middle-aged couple in Paso Robles, CA, looking forward to securing a decent retirement, thought they had reached their goal when Eiko’s company granted her stock options. They were advised by professionals to hold the stock for at least a year. More... |  | Meet the Browns ( Rep.Tim Walberg, R-MI-7)
AS part of my compensation package I was granted ISO, incentive stock options. In 2000, I had income of $100,000. However, when my accountant calculated AMT, the amount owed was $371,000... I was certain the accountant must be wrong; how could taxes exceed your entire income?! I checked with other tax professionals to find that, in fact, the accountant was correct and it was due to a little known tax called the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is basically an interest-free loan to the government that gets credited back to you over time at $3,000 per year... More... |
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