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> RSUs taxed as short term gains and not long term That's not correct. RSUs get taxed as normal income. So whether you get $600k cash or $300k cash + $300k of

> RSUs taxed as short term gains and not long term That's not correct. RSUs get taxed as normal income. So whether you get $600k cash or $300k cash + $300k of RSUs, your tax bill is the same. The gain on the RSUs get taxed as short or long term capital gain. That comes into picture when you sell. If you auto-sell, there is no/very little gain, so no additional tax there and for intents and purpose, it's as if getting $600k in cash. The numbers reported on levels.fyi are not useless. They give you a good idea of what one can get if they started working there at that moment. You can extrapolate more out of it by understanding the stock gain.

sombremesa 5y ago
How is it incorrect? Short term gains are taxed the same as income, which is exactly what both of us are saying. This is setup to favor people who don’t understand taxes, so they don’t screw themselves over. It ends up screwing people who do understand taxes.
- what_ever 5y ago
  If you read my comment again, if you sell your stocks immediately after vesting, there is little to no gain. You can even do this automatically at Google using autosale program. Yes, this is short term gain, but it's negligible compared to how much you are getting paid. e.g. Let's say the stock was at $1000 when vested and by the time you got around to sell it 5 days after it's at $1050 - 5% gain which is not so common in usual scenarios. You will pay short term capital gain tax only on $50. This is the only additional tax you will pay compared to getting $1000 in cash as part of your base salary. The $1000 stock itself will be taxed as normal income. The gain you get on the stock from vest till you sell is a bonus anyway compared to if you were just given straight cash. I would advise you to run some actual numbers to get this. I don't need to as I have been getting paid this for last 5 years at Google.

sombremesa 5y ago

How is it incorrect? Short term gains are taxed the same as income, which is exactly what both of us are saying. This is setup to favor people who don’t understand taxes, so they don’t screw themselves over. It ends up screwing people who do understand taxes.

what_ever 5y ago
If you read my comment again, if you sell your stocks immediately after vesting, there is little to no gain. You can even do this automatically at Google using autosale program. Yes, this is short term gain, but it's negligible compared to how much you are getting paid. e.g. Let's say the stock was at $1000 when vested and by the time you got around to sell it 5 days after it's at $1050 - 5% gain which is not so common in usual scenarios. You will pay short term capital gain tax only on $50. This is the only additional tax you will pay compared to getting $1000 in cash as part of your base salary. The $1000 stock itself will be taxed as normal income. The gain you get on the stock from vest till you sell is a bonus anyway compared to if you were just given straight cash. I would advise you to run some actual numbers to get this. I don't need to as I have been getting paid this for last 5 years at Google.