Most people accept the methods currently used to account for stock options in the financial statements, says Terry Warfield, professor of accounting and information systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The theory behind it runs like this: When companies provide stock options, they are making a payment in exchange for services, and they have to account for that payment. The best way to determine the value of the payment is on the date of the grant, given that that's when the agreement was entered into. At the same time, this requires estimating the present value of an option that may not be exercised for years.

"Generally, the tax code doesn't go for estimates," as tax authorities worry that estimates would be vulnerable to gamesmanship, Warfield notes. So, the tax code instead uses the difference between the stock price and exercise price, both of which should be easy to obtain.

Still, some feel that the current system allows companies, more or less, to have their cake and eat it too, Ketz notes. They can, that is, record a lower number for options expense on the financial statements, boosting the company's bottom line; then, they can record a higher number on their tax return, lowering their tax bill. The argument is made that bringing these two numbers into alignment may decrease these opportunities.

This often becomes part of a larger debate about the merits of stock options themselves. When options first emerged in the 1990s, people made the case that they were a way for start-up companies to reward employees by giving them an incentive to bear some of the risk of a new venture -- based on the inability of many of these firms to pay large salaries, Warfield says. That may have been the right decision at the time, Warfield says.