I was an early employee of a fairly successful tech startup. Early on, I was granted 10,000 options with a strike price of $0.05 and later on 25,000 options with a strike price of $0.52. The company just sold an I'm told the share price is $4.90 which means I stand to make around $158,000, if my math is correct. The new owners are calling in all the options I basically have to exercise them or they are forfiet. In my current position I'm expecting to be granted options in the new company, so I am totally happy with all of that and really excited about the future of my career.
Here's the problem though... I'm expecting to have to pay basically half of that $158,000 in payroll taxes by the time federal, state, and SS/medicare/etc. is deducted. I file married filing jointly as my wife is a stay at home mom. What are some ways I can avoid/defer having to pay all those taxes? Can I max out my 401k contributions for the year on the sale of the exercised options? Will I make too much to even get any deductions for Traditional IRA contributions? My base salary is $110,000 plus bonuses, it looks like I won't even be eligible to contribute at all to a Roth IRA at all this year because my salary plus the sale after exercising my options puts me at over $268,000 before any bonuses.
Any advice is welcomed, thanks /r/personalfinace !
Submitted March 03, 2017 at 10:13PM by jordan-gillespie http://ift.tt/2mXbiVD
