Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) introduced H.R. 692 on January 26, 2009. Essentially, the bill would exempt from tax the value of company stock paid directly to an employee if the employee holds the stock for at least 10 years. This proposal would be most suitable for a publicly traded company. As such, H.R. 692 is the first to encourage employee ownership in a publicly traded company since a 2001 law. The 2001 law expanded the federal tax deduction for dividends paid on ESOP stock to permit a deduction for dividends reinvested by the employee back to the plan to acquire more company stock.