About
Why I built this
Equity comp trips up plenty of smart people, and the tax is where it gets expensive. This is my attempt to explain how it works, in plain English.
Most people get their equity explained to them twice: once in a dense plan document nobody reads, and once by someone with a product to sell. Neither one tells you the part that actually costs money, which is the tax and the timing. I built equitycompensation.com to be the option in between: a free, plain-English library on how RSUs, stock options, ESPPs, and QSBS really work, and what each decision does to your tax bill.
What you'll find here
Every grant type, taken apart the same way: how it works, how it is taxed at each stage, the strategies, the pitfalls, the forms, and real scenarios. No jargon you have to look up, no fear-based hooks, no pitch. Just the mechanics and the decisions, written so you can use them. The figures get an advisor's review before anything goes live, because a wrong number here is not a typo, it is money.
Who's behind it
I'm Gabriel Kaplan, a CFP® and CPA, and equity compensation planning is what I do for a living. This site is the educational side of that work. The way I think about money is simple to say and hard to practice: look past the obvious first move to the second and third thing that happens. The tax bill you can see coming is the one you never pay. A concentrated position feels like loyalty right up until it doesn't. Most expensive equity-comp mistakes are not complicated, they are just invisible until someone points at them.
There is nothing to buy on this site. Everything here is educational and general, not personalized advice. When I work with someone one-on-one, that happens through my firm, Wealth Habits.
If you want to go further
You do not have to hire anyone to use this. Read all of it, free. But if your equity is a real part of your net worth and the decisions are getting expensive, a second set of eyes tends to pay for itself. That is the work I do. The two-minute fit check will tell you honestly whether a planning conversation makes sense for your situation, or whether the community and these guides are the better fit for now.
Either way, the goal of this site does not change: that you understand your own equity well enough to make the call yourself.
Wondering if it is worth a conversation?
Two minutes, an honest answer, no pressure either way.