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my understanding of US stock options for Canadians (and really for anyone who can't afford to exercise their options) is: - having ISOs is bad, you don't get a
by jvns 6y ago
my understanding of US stock options for Canadians (and really for anyone who can't afford to exercise their options) is:
- having ISOs is bad, you don't get any of the tax advantages that Americans get and it means that they expire 90 days after you leave the company if you don't exercise them
- having NSOs that expire after 10 years is good, they can still be risky to exercise (same as with ISOs), but that's not too bad because you can delay exercising for 10 years after you get them, and hopefully they'll become liquid (or worthless) before then
- it's possible for a company to switch employees' options from ISOs to NSOs (for example Pinterest did this https://fortune.com/2015/03/23/pinterest-employee-taxes/ https://fortune.com/2015/03/23/pinterest-employee-taxes/), so it might be worth putting pressure on your employer to offer that change if you're in the bad (ISO) situation
- Waterluvian 6y agoIt's reassuring that you've independently come to the same conclusion I did. And in the absence of the NSO option, my current thought on the matter is that they hold no value unless there's an exit while I'm working there, and I'll want to get an accountant who knows how to exercise it all properly.