Dodging Taxes Is a New Stock Options Scheme

By ERIC DASH

Published: October 30, 2006

In the latest twist in the stock options game, some executives may have changed the so-called exercise date — the date options can be converted to stock — to avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in income tax, federal investigators say.

That appears to be what happened at Symbol Technologies and Mercury Interactive, and federal securities regulators are now sifting through options data at other companies for evidence of similar tax-avoidance schemes.