Insights

With Changing Times, Stay Informed

Thought Leadership and Equity Insights

We are here to help you navigate your equity stock options.  Discover new insights based on our expert understanding of industry trends and specific insights relating to company equity plans.

IRS Updates Hard Fork Guidance

Recently, the IRS clarified the conditions under which hard forks give rise to taxable income: only when there is an airdrop of new cryptocurrency to the taxpayer’s account. The standard for realization of income is ‘dominion and control,’ and it seems logical to expect that only the means to buy, sell, send, receive, or transfer…

Read more

ISOs, False Dichotomies, and Conversions

When you have unexercised Incentive Stock Options, leaving your current position creates an important inflection point. If you leave your company, you will have, at most, 90 days to exercise unexercised ISOs. The suggestion that you must either exercise your ISOs or let them expire is a false dichotomy. There is in fact a third…

Read more

AMT Drag in Multi-Year Tax Plans

AMT drag is the inverse of tax deferral. Poorly conceived multi-year ISO plans have a common feature: AMT drag. AMT earns you the right for long-term capital gains treatment on stock options. You pay AMT as a deposit and (ideally) get it back as a tax credit against LTCG when you sell the underlying option…

Read more