Supercharge Your Most Valuable Employee Benefit
Equity compensation is a reward for your talent and hard work, and an asset that can help build long-term wealth.
Thoughtfully managing key decisions—especially those related to taxes and avoiding concentration risk—can make a big difference in how much you ultimately gain. We're proud to say we've developed a specialty in managing equity over the last 40 years including:
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Restricted Stock Units and Restricted Stock Awards
- Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPP)
- Incentive Stock Options and Nonqualified Stock Options
- Synthetic Equity or Phantom Equity
- Deferred Compensation
Unpacking Your Equity
It sounds basic, but one of our first steps when working with an executive or business owner receiving equity as a part of their compensation is to unpack exactly what's on the table.
Because many forms of restricted stock, employee purchase plans, or deferred compensation come with complex multi-year vesting schedules and grant types, it's important to lay out the whole picture in one spot to make the most strategic decisions.
Ready to lay it all on the table? Let's chat about creating a private strategy to manage your equity.
Tax Considerations
Your equity can impact your taxes in different ways over time from grant, to vesting, to selling.
As part of our holistic financial planning process, we’ll thoughtfully manage your shares to keep your taxable income within the desired tax bracket over time so you don't end up with a surprise bill.
If you're not entirely confident your equity is optimized for your goals, we should talk.
Selling Strategy
This is the most common question we hear, and it's a question that unfortunately gets answered with a lot of bad advice that can leave folks with a risky concentration or paying unnecessary taxes every year.
Our team has developed a proprietary tool for determining the most tax-efficient selling strategy for your vested shares that maximizes your earnings.
We're ready to help. Book time with an advisor to run through your equity offering to get a second set of eyes.
Portfolio Diversification
There's no one-size-fits-all answer, but we generally recommend allocating no more than 10% of your net worth to your company's stock.
We’ll work with you on thoughtful diversification strategies to keep your portfolio well-balanced and avoid the many biases that can lead you to miss opportunity.
If you've held onto a lot of company stock, you're not alone. But we should chat to unpack how to make sure your hard work is truly an advantage in your financial plan.
Experienced Team
From the beginning, we've worked with a wide variety of executives, business owners, and successful individuals earning equity at private and public businesses.
We've sorted through some of the most complex layers of restricted, deferred, and purchased units and awards for clients to get ahead.
Your time is valuable and the risk of mismanaging equity can leave a dent. Looking for a thought partner to keep things organized? We're ready to help.
Equity Compensation
Anticipating a Tax Mistake Before It Hit
A recently retired client held appreciated company stock in his 401(k) and wanted to take advantage of a Net Unrealized Appreciation (NUA) strategy.
Without careful execution, the tax benefits could have been lost—potentially misreporting long-term capital gains as short-term and triggering a much higher tax bill.
We helped the client complete the NUA transfer to ensure gains on his company stock would be taxed at favorable long-term capital gains rates.
Anticipating a common reporting error, we proactively reviewed his draft tax return and worked with his CPA to correct the 1099 reporting. As a result, he avoided an unnecessary tax hit and received the savings he was entitled to.
