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Comment by bmcfeeley | Hacker News Reader

How concerned should I be about my employer (sizable company, ~300 employees) being reticent to divulge our 409A valuation with me? I've had a hard time (read: never did get; only got my options' fractional ownership in percentage terms after long nagging email chains) in the past getting any information to this effect, and we just raised another round a few months back, so I would like to estimate my tax burden, but they don't seem keen on sharing.

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If you're eligible to exercise any options, I would be concerned; you can't make an informed decision without knowing the tax consequences. You might want to phrase it as you'd like to exercise some options, but you need to know the 409a valuation so you know how much AMT you can afford.

If you're not yet vested and there's no early exercise provision, you don't need to be super concerned, since you can't take any action anyway; but I would be sure you're getting the compensation that you want in a form you can value (salary).

Would I be accurate in restating your last point as "if they won't tell you what the shares are valued at or how big the pool is, and they just give you a percentage, you have no clue how much the equity is actually worth?"

Yes, exactly.

Very concerned. They have a legal obligation to tell you this number so that you can properly pay your taxes. Companies that aren't willing to share this data are reasonably likely to be screwing you.

They need to share it for your W-2 or similar at tax time, not necessarliy at any other time.

If you have vested options, then you can exercise one of them to officially become a shareholder at which point you will have access to a lot of additional information. As only an options holder, there's no legal requirement for them to share that with you.

However, I would be concerned at a fundamental level because, good or bad, they're not being honest with you about the most basic state of the company. You have to ask yourself if that's even the kind of place where you want to be working.

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