Legal Updates
On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (often called the "Big Beautiful Bill"). Among its many provisions, the Act makes sweeping changes to Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code, which governs Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) and has
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Update (Aug 27, 2025): FinCEN’s March 21, 2025 interim rule eliminated the BOI reporting requirement for domestic companies and U.S. residents and set an April 25, 2025 deadline for foreign reporting companies. The drama described below is now resolved. From FinCEN: "Immediate Release February 27, 2025 WASHINGTON–
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When you set up your company, you hopefully set up a stock option plan (also known as an equity inventive plan) at the same time so that you have a plan that is properly adopted and ready to be used when you are about to grant options or other equity
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Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) has become a buzzword in the privacy law world the last few years, and it is heavily protected by rules and regulations around the world, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Companies that fail to comply with regulations such as the GDPR, or that
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The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) became effective at the start of 2020. Its purpose is to protect the personal identifiable information (“PII”) of California consumers. The bad news for businesses is that the California Consumer Privacy Act’s legal requirements are murky at best. And, even in its infancy,
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The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) has some twisty definitions of who is - and isn’t - considered a California consumer. The text of the CCPA says a business who “alone or in combination, annually buys, receives for the business's commercial purposes, sells, or shares for commercial
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My colleague Susan Schalla and I put together the below video chat on IP assignments and confidentiality agreements for Founders Live. If you haven't checked out Founders Live, check it out at https://founderslive.mn.co/. Carney Badley Spellman is about Advocacy, Strategy, Results. Located in Seattle, we
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If you are interested in how the SEC is thinking about crypto tokens as securities, we recommend you watch William Hinman's recent speech and read its transcript. We've included an embed and a link to the speech below. We think perhaps the most important and interesting
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Taxation of Stock Options As of now, the Senate has abandoned the idea of taxing stock options as they vest. This is the modification to the mark, released late yesterday. https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/11.14.17%20Chairman's%20Modified%20Mark.pdfhttps://www.finance.senate.
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Stock option taxation is a sensitive issue in startup land. Fred Wilson recently sounded the alarm about the Senate's proposal to tax stock options as they vest. TechCrunch has also written about this. Right now, what we have to work with is the DESCRIPTION OF THE CHAIRMAN’S
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In this video, we talk about founder tax issues, primarily: 1. The 83(b) election -- when it applies; when it doesn't; when it is due; etc. 2. Qualified Small Business Stock considerations in choosing what type of business entity to form. We hope you enjoy the video.
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Guest Post By Dan Wright Federal Research Tax Credits Is your business involved in creating intellectual property or process and product improvement? If so, you or your business may qualify for federal research tax credits. Common Misconceptions First, let’s clear up some myths about what business activity qualifies for