Tax Treatment Of Transactions In Options PDF Download

Ascertaining whether a particular financial instrument is an option is important not only for determining the tax treatment of payments made under that instrument, but also for determining the tax consequences of other transactions in which the taxpayer may have engaged. This article discusses the tax treatment of financial instruments that take the form of options but prohibit the exercise of the option unless a specified event occurs. While a number of cases and rulings have dealt with the taxation of contingent options in the contexts of particular transactions, the existing authorities have not set forth a comprehensive theory for analyzing these instruments. In this article, the author proposes a framework for determining the tax treatment of contingent options. To that end, the article first gives several examples of contingent options. Second, the article analyzes the cases and rulings that govern the treatment of contingent options. Third, the article applies the principles of the cases and rulings to the examples of contingent options referred to above. Finally, the article concludes that whether a particular contingent option would be treated as an option for tax purposes would depend largely on the policy considerations that are relevant to the code provision for which the determination was being made.