Most people understand that taxes can be a little more complicated when you have incentives stock options and other equity compensation. What they may not know is that income tax isn’t just about tax brackets to calculate your regular taxable income. The federal income tax system has a sister system that figures how much tax you may owe due to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). AMT may kick in when your income goes over a certain threshold or when you engage in certain activities, namely exercising and holding incentive stock options.
Category: Alternative Minimum Tax
How to Use a Cashless Exercise of Incentive Stock Options to Manage Cash Flow
If you have employee stock options, you need to determine what kind you have so you know if a cash or cashless exercise makes sense: incentive stock options (ISO) or non-qualified stock options (NQSO). The differences go far beyond their names. ISOs may provide tax...
What You Should Know About the Alternative Minimum Tax
Created in 1969 as a way to ensure high-income earners paid their fair share in taxes, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) acts as a parallel tax system to the regular federal income tax system. Taxpayers should technically calculate their income twice—once under the...
Why Waiting to Exercise Your Incentive Stock Options May Increase The Alternative Minimum Tax
Incentive stock options are unique in that the longer you wait to exercise, the costlier it may be to exercise and hold your shares. That’s not because exercising the incentive stock option cost more, as that price is fixed, but because the cost of the alternative...
How to Exercise Incentive Stock Options to the AMT Crossover Point
Finding the best time and best strategy to exercise incentive stock options is difficult. Competing considerations on income tax, investment planning, and financial planning make it difficult to address the best time to exercise incentive stock options (ISOs) with a...
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Hi, I'm Daniel Zajac, CFP®, EA
I write about equity compensation and employee stock options in a way that is easy to understand.
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