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RSUs

Recommended In-depth

How RSUs work

An RSU is a promise of shares once you vest. That one fact, the gap between the promise and the shares, decides when you owe tax, what you own, and what you walk away with if you leave.
Explainer

State tax on RSUs when you move states

Move to a no-tax state and your RSUs do not all become tax-free. The state where you worked while they vested can still tax that slice of the income.
Explainer

How to value an RSU offer against base salary

Discount the equity for vesting risk and volatility before you compare two job offers.
In-depth Start here

The RSU tax traps that hit in April, and how to dodge them

The flat rate your company withholds at vesting is almost always lower than what you owe, and that gap is just the first of the RSU traps. This is the complete field guide: the withholding gap, estimated taxes, the double-taxed 1099-B, short-term gains, blackouts, wash sales, acceleration, and the private-company bill on shares you cannot sell.
Case study

Laid off with unvested RSUs on the table

What one worker actually kept after a layoff, and the one severance term that saved part of the pile.

Restricted stock

Recommended Guide

Restricted stock awards (RSAs): the complete guide

An RSA is real stock you own at grant, on a vesting schedule, common at the earliest startups. That ownership from day one is what makes the 83(b) election possible, why founders reverse-vest, and what decides who keeps shares when someone leaves.
Explainer

Restricted stock in an acquisition

When your company gets bought, your restricted stock can cash out, convert to acquirer shares, or roll into new vesting. Which one you get, and whether your unvested shares accelerate, decides what the deal actually pays you.

NSOs

Recommended Question

State taxes on NSOs when you change states

Move to a no-tax state and you still owe the old state on the part of the spread you earned there. The income follows the workdays, not your new address.
In-depth Start here

NSO exercise strategy: when to exercise, hold or sell, and the moves around it

The one lever an NSO hands you is the calendar. This is the whole playbook: when to exercise, whether to hold or sell, how to spread it, how to fund the tax, and how to give the shares away.
Case study

Case study: exercising NSOs during a sabbatical

A year off dropped the bracket, and a planned NSO exercise rode the savings down with it.

Hybrids & more

Recommended Case study

A phantom stock payout at a private company

An executive watched her phantom units pay out at a sale, then learned the whole check was wages. A walk through what landed, what was withheld, and what she owed.
Explainer

How equity comp is split in a divorce

Unvested grants are often marital property, dividing them is its own tax problem, and the real cost is the time.

QSBS

Recommended Explainer

QSBS and California

California ignores the QSBS exclusion entirely. A gain the IRS lets you exclude in full is taxed at up to 13.3 percent by California, and the only real fix is residency, set up years before you sell.