CPA for Tech

A general accountant can file an accurate return, but most are built for W-2 wages and a standard deduction, not for a household earning across salary, RSU vests, option exercises, and sometimes multiple states in a single year. A CPA for tech employees knows the specific mechanics that move your tax bill: the RSU withholding gap, ISO and AMT exercise timing, IPO-year estimated payments, and equity sourcing across a move. Accuracy is the floor; the planning is the point.

Employers withhold federal tax on RSU vests at a flat supplemental-wage rate, generally 22%, while a household with significant equity income often sits in the 32% to 37% marginal brackets. The gap between what was withheld and what you actually owe shows up as a balance due in April, often with an underpayment penalty on top. We size withholding top-ups or quarterly estimates to your actual vest calendar so the gap closes during the year, not after it.

For tax purposes, vesting, not selling, is what creates the income, and your cost basis resets to the value on that date. Holding afterward is a concentrated position in one company’s stock, which is an investment decision, not a tax strategy: selling right away usually produces little additional gain or loss. We model the tax side and coordinate the diversification decision with your financial advisor.

Exercising ISOs creates no regular income tax, but the spread between the fair market value and your strike price is generally an alternative minimum tax adjustment. Exercise a large block in one year and you can owe a substantial AMT bill on paper gains, cash tax on shares you have not sold. We model exercises in annual increments to manage the exposure and track the resulting AMT credit for recovery in later years.

There is no fixed number; it depends on your other income, filing status, and the AMT exemption and phase-out for the year, all of which change annually. We run the AMT projection against your specific numbers before you exercise, not after, so the exercise size is a planned decision rather than a year-end surprise.

If your RSUs carry a double trigger, a large batch that has been quietly satisfying its service condition for years can vest all at once at the IPO, creating a single year of unusually large ordinary income. Payroll withholding, even at the higher mandatory rate for large supplemental wages, often still falls short of your actual liability. We project the IPO-year income in advance and plan estimated payments, charitable timing, and lockup-period cash flow around it.

A double-trigger RSU requires two conditions before it vests: a time-based service requirement and a liquidity event, usually an IPO or acquisition. Until both conditions are met, nothing is taxed, even if the service condition has been satisfied for years. Once the second trigger fires, typically at IPO, the shares vest and the full value is taxed as ordinary income at once.

Often both, in pieces. Most states, California prominently, source equity compensation to where you worked during the vesting period, so a grant earned partly in California and partly in a new state is typically allocated between them, even after you have moved and become a resident elsewhere. We allocate vest income across states, coordinate the credits, and document the move so the position holds up.

The purchase discount is taxed as compensation either way. What changes is how much of the remaining gain is ordinary income versus capital gain, which depends on whether the sale is a qualifying or disqualifying disposition under the plan’s holding-period rules. Selling too early can convert gain that would have been capital into ordinary income; we plan the sale date around the holding period.

An 83(b) election lets you pay tax on restricted stock at grant, when the value is typically low, instead of at vesting, when it may be much higher, and it starts your capital-gains holding period early. It generally applies to early-exercised options or founder-style restricted stock, not to standard RSUs. The deadline is 30 days from grant or early exercise and is unforgiving; miss it and the election is usually lost for good.

If your 401(k) plan allows after-tax contributions and either in-service distributions or in-plan Roth conversions, yes, and it is one of the highest-value moves available to a high-earning tech employee. Many large tech employer plans support it; many employees never ask. We confirm your specific plan’s mechanics and layer it into the broader strategy alongside your equity income.

Qualified Small Business Stock is stock in certain qualifying C-corporations that, if held long enough, can exclude some or all of the gain from federal tax under Internal Revenue Code Section 1202. Qualification depends on the entity type, gross assets at issuance, the business’s activity, and your holding period, so it is worth checking early, ideally before you exercise, not after you sell. We flag it as part of the equity-comp review.

A tender offer lets you sell a portion of vested shares to outside investors before a public listing, and the sale is taxed like any other stock sale, generally capital gain or loss against your basis. The decisions worth planning ahead of time are how much to sell, whether to pair it with an option exercise, and how the resulting income interacts with your other equity vesting that year.

No. Taxstra does tax strategy and the filings that execute it; we do not sell investments or manage assets, which keeps our advice free of product commissions. We coordinate directly with your financial advisor so the tax plan and the investment plan agree with each other.

Before. The highest-value moves, withholding adjustments, ISO exercise timing, charitable bunching, and estimated payments, only work prospectively. If a tender offer or IPO has already been announced, call now; there is usually still meaningful room to plan before the event itself.

Fees depend on the complexity of your situation: how many states you have equity exposure in, whether you hold ISOs, NSOs, or both, and how much planning the year requires. Rather than quote a generic number, we scope the engagement on the discovery call so you know exactly what is included before deciding.

Yes. We are based in Springfield, Illinois and work with tech employees nationwide, including remote workers and employees who relocate mid-vest. Onboarding, planning calls, and document exchange all happen remotely, and we coordinate multi-state filings regardless of where you live or where your equity was earned.

Book a free 30-minute call through our website. We review your income sources, equity grants, and vesting schedule, and you walk away with a clear picture of the withholding gaps, exercise timing, and planning opportunities we see. No obligation, no sales pressure.