The ESOP Association wants to hear from you: Would you mind taking a few minutes to tell us about your website experience today? Your feedback is confidential, and will take less than 5 minutes to complete.

Take the Survey

The ESOP Association

ESOP Association Resources

Mar. 29
Certain factors are likely to garner high levels of attention from valuation advisors. Whether you’re an employee-owner, a key decision maker, an ESOP trustee, or an ESOP advisor, you can expect to see increased emphasis on the following six major themes during this valuation update cycle
Mar. 22
One of the largest projects of the year for your Association is just that – building A New Policy Agenda and making our plans to see it through.
Mar. 14
Washington, DC, March 14, 2022 - The ESOP Association and American Benefits Council jointly filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in support of the belief that ESOP plans need, and have, the ability to require individual arbitration to resolve individual participant disputes.  A previous District Court ruling has the potential to eliminate individual arbitration, which would dramatically increase the litigation costs for companies with employee defined-contribution retirement plans, such as ESOPs and 401(k)s. 
Mar. 08
Advocacy Academy, ESOP Advocacy Day, New Town Halls, High Impact Keynote Speakers, and 60+ Learning Sessions. Virtual and In-Person!
Mar. 01
Des Moines Iowa, March 1, 2022 –Today Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds returned to Library Binding Services (LBS Inc.), a 100% employee-owned business, to sign into law legislation to eliminate state taxes on retirement income, including taxes on Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP) distributions.  This important change has the power to motivate more Iowa business owners to sell their businesses to their employees as a business succession plan. 
ESOP Blog, Resource
Feb. 28
In this, our final installment on common criticisms of ESOPs—and why they are wrong—we’ll look at the assertion that ESOPs are not real ownership.
According to cynics, ESOPs are “fake” ownership plans. In “real” ownership, they argue, the owners control their assets by determining such things as who runs the company, who sits on the Board of Directors, when major corporate decisions are made that might impact the future of the company, and so on.
But ESOPs are true ownership.
ESOP Blog, Resource
Feb. 14
I often hear three criticisms about ESOPs: The second criticism is that ESOPs are a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Cynics say the tax breaks provided to ESOPs are money losers because the majority of American taxpayers pay higher rates to make up for the cost of ESOP tax benefits.
But anyone who says that must not have done very well in elementary school when they learned basic math. ESOPs offer great returns on tax incentives.