A lot of people, especially those getting laid off by the thousand in tech at the moment, are paid in shares instead of cash
These people already get double taxed, once essentially when the share rights vest and are exercised (e.g. years after they are awarded) they’re taxed as income at the current value despite not having been sold. Then taxed again when sold, as capital gains
If you make a loss on your shares paid as income by the time they are sold, bad luck, you have to gamble on other stocks/assets and make a large win greater than your losses to ever see the tax back again
E.g.
50k cash, 50k share rights per year
Three years later the share rights vest from the first year of employment and can be exercised into actual shares. This is the taxing point, but if they are worth 150k now, you are taxed on 150k as income + your 50k annual salary so you’re at 200k taxable income with only 50k cash per year coming in
Now when you sell the shares let’s say that 150k is now 50k, you the tax you paid on them is more than the cash you got from selling them and you have to sell another batch of shares 50k in capital gains or more to offset the capital loss and get your tax back
To top it off, when you get fired you typically lose all unvested and unexercised share rights (I.e. half your pay for the last three years)
Employers also don’t have to pay super on shares awarded this way
To me, that sounds like the risk you should have to take if you’re accepting shares as payment and holding onto them. The inital tax makes sense because it is effectively an income, then that value used as a benchmark for legitimate capital gains makes sense too. If it goes down then that’s just a loss due to the shares decreasing in value… You could always just sell them off when they vest…
I’d be surprised if they did, but curious what good you see in it?
A lot of people, especially those getting laid off by the thousand in tech at the moment, are paid in shares instead of cash
These people already get double taxed, once essentially when the share rights vest and are exercised (e.g. years after they are awarded) they’re taxed as income at the current value despite not having been sold. Then taxed again when sold, as capital gains
If you make a loss on your shares paid as income by the time they are sold, bad luck, you have to gamble on other stocks/assets and make a large win greater than your losses to ever see the tax back again
E.g.
50k cash, 50k share rights per year
Three years later the share rights vest from the first year of employment and can be exercised into actual shares. This is the taxing point, but if they are worth 150k now, you are taxed on 150k as income + your 50k annual salary so you’re at 200k taxable income with only 50k cash per year coming in
Now when you sell the shares let’s say that 150k is now 50k, you the tax you paid on them is more than the cash you got from selling them and you have to sell another batch of shares 50k in capital gains or more to offset the capital loss and get your tax back
To top it off, when you get fired you typically lose all unvested and unexercised share rights (I.e. half your pay for the last three years)
Employers also don’t have to pay super on shares awarded this way
To me, that sounds like the risk you should have to take if you’re accepting shares as payment and holding onto them. The inital tax makes sense because it is effectively an income, then that value used as a benchmark for legitimate capital gains makes sense too. If it goes down then that’s just a loss due to the shares decreasing in value… You could always just sell them off when they vest…