No one's excited about the possibility of paying higher taxes. For employees who get a big part of their compensation through stock options, however, a future tax hike could mean a big bill in the years to come -- if you don't take steps to minimize the damage right now.
Not just for the C-suite
Whenever someone talks about stock options, most people think of high-paid corporate executives and the millions in compensation that many of them receive. It's true that some of the highest-paid CEOs, including Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) Steve Jobs and former UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) CEO William McGuire, have received huge amounts of wealth from owning stock options when share prices have been on the rise.
However, there are plenty of places where rank-and-file employees also get at least some benefit from stock options. Technology firms like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) were noted in the late 1990s for granting stock options to ordinary employees, making many of them rich during the tech-driven bull market that led to the Internet bubble. But you can also find stock options outside the technology sector, at companies including Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV), and PepsiCo (NYSE:PEP).
After 2008's bear market, thinking about how profits on stock options might impact your taxes was largely a moot point, as most stocks were suffering huge losses and leaving any options that employees owned essentially worthless. But with some of the big gains that stocks have enjoyed in 2009, longtime holders of stock options may suddenly find themselves with decent gains again -- much of which could fall into the hands of the IRS without proper planning.
The danger of stock options
Although stock options align the interests of employees with shareholders', they come with tax complications for workers who receive them. One type, known as nonqualified stock options, has two taxable events associated with it. When you first exercise your option and receive shares, you generate taxable income equal to the difference between the current market price of the stock less the smaller amount you have to pay for shares under your option contract. After you exercise, any further gain gets preferable long-term capital gain treatment if you hold onto the shares for more than a year.
In contrast, incentive stock options don't create regular tax liability when you exercise them, although they can be subject to alternative minimum tax. If you hold them for more than a year after you exercise them, the entire gain is eligible for capital gains treatment -- even the portion that came from before you exercised your options.
Ordinarily, stock options provide a form of tax deferral, and workers are well-advised to wait as long as possible before exercising them. But with concerns that tax hikes will come in the near future, some advisors are recommending that employees with stock options exercise them now to capitalize on current low tax rates.
In 2011, rates are scheduled to rise as much as 4.6 percentage points on high-income taxpayers, and the administration has proposed a surtax that could effectively raise the top federal marginal rate to 45%.
Exercising now would mean that you'd pay taxes sooner than necessary, which would take away the benefit of a few years of tax deferral between now and whenever your options require you to exercise them. But the difference between paying 35% or less now versus potentially paying as much as 45% or more in taxes in the future may well outweigh the benefits of tax deferral.
Weigh your options
With future tax law as uncertain as it is right now, it's impossible to be certain what your tax rates will look like in the future. Taking an extreme position in either direction could turn out to be costly if law changes move against you. A middle-ground approach might be the most prudent way to hedge your bets.
If you're fortunate enough to have stock options that have risen in value, you have some important decisions to make. Although no one likes to pay taxes before they absolutely have to, biting the bullet a bit early may end up saving you a ton of cash in the long run.
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