What's new?

Beginning on June 21, customers with both Carta 409A and Financial Reporting in their subscription will begin receiving two separate, audit-defensible reports: one with the Fair Market Value (FMV) used for tax purposes, and one with the Financial Reporting Value (FRV) used for accounting purposes.

Delivering these reports separately will more closely align with a changing regulatory environment in which tax guidelines under 409A and accounting standards under ASC 718 diverge.

Historically, Carta has only delivered a single report that values our customers' common stock under section 409A of the tax code. This singular report would double as a valuation used for both tax and accounting purposes, which introduced challenges for customers going through audits - companies are incentivized to keep their FMV low to keep options attractive for employees, while auditors may push companies to increase the Fair Value of stock when calculating stock-based compensation expense.

Disambiguating these two concepts allows our customers to work more flexibly with their auditors while still keeping options and other equity awards attractive as incentives for hiring and retaining talent.

What do I need to do?

If you're a customer with both Carta 409A and Financial Reporting in your subscription, you'll receive two reports the next time you request a 409A valuation from Carta: one with the Fair Market Value (FMV), and one with the Financial Reporting Value (FRV).

The FMV can be used as normal: pricing options, helping employees estimate their tax burden when exercising, Form 3921 filings, etc. The FRV can be used in Carta's Financial Reporting product to calculate the expense associated with stock-based compensation. Customers can work with their auditors to either directly use the provided FRV or adjust it from within Carta's Financial Reporting product as necessary.

For customers with access to both Carta 409A and Financial Reporting in your subscription, you’ll see an additional card for FRV at the top of the Valuations homepage in Carta (Compliance & Tax > 409A Valuations) once you receive and accept a new valuation report from Carta:

You'll also see an extra column in the table at the bottom of the Valuations homepage which shows historical FRVs side-by-side with historical FMVs:

How do I learn more or get help?

We've created a few help articles with detailed information about FRV and how this value differs from FMV and appears in Carta:

• Separate Reports for Fair Market Value and Financial Reporting Value
• 409A and ASC 718 Compliance: Carta’s Financial Reporting Value (FRV)
• Financial Reporting (V3): Carta’s Financial Reporting Value (FRV)

If you've received your FRV report and have further questions, feel free to reach out to val-operations@carta.com - we'd be happy to help.