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Comment by busterarm | Hacker News Reader

RSUs aren't "extra" pay though. They are shares in lieu of cash compensation. At some companies you can negotiate to get all of your RSU compensation as cash instead and that money will be part of your base compensation, which will make your taxes simpler and might be better for you in the long run.

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I have never heard of any company who would entertain substituting RSU compensation for cash. If you asked your Google recruiter for 500k in cash instead of 250k in base and 250k dollars in annual RSUs, you'd be laughed out of the room.

Iirc Netflix did this

Netflix is the one notable exception. But they are the exception.

TikTok does it too.

They don't offer you to replace RSU with cash, they don't offer RSU at all to anyone, but give much higher salaries instead. That's not the same.

It's not FAANGs that do this, it's slightly smaller companies.

I have done this. My current employer offers this option if you ask for it.

Also when Facebook was first picking up Data Scientists I know people who were negotiating 500k all cash packages.

If you sell your rsus when they vest its the same result

It's not. RSUs are taxed in the state in which they're granted, at least at my company. Not where they vest.

Uh, they're income to the employee in the state they work when they vest. California has a very weird and ambitious law that tries to claw income from grants made while the employee worked in California (even long after the employee has moved out of the state), but that is not the norm.

Can attest to this. I moved away from California in 2021 and continued to work for my employer. I pay taxes on RSUs that were granted in California as they vest in both California and my new home state. My state (and I expect most others) has a tax credit for taxes paid in both states.

If anyone finds themselves in this situation, I would highly recommend hiring a tax advisor who can help you navigate this.

Is this for grants that were initially made prior to 2022? Otherwise, I can't possibly see how California has any claim to that money.

Yes this is only for grants made while you were working in California. But even if the vest happens years later and you’ve lived in another state for years, California still wants their cut.

That's correct, only for grants that were made while I was living in California. Any subsequent grants I receive in my new home state are not subject to California state taxes.

> My state (and I expect most others) has a tax credit for taxes paid in both states.

I'm in the same situation but NY but opted out of this credit because for the amount I would get back on double-taxation, NY state wanted to tax me an additional 10x (and more than 50% of the value of the sold shares...) as much filing a return in their state even though I didn't earn any income there.

Plus an underpayment penalty.

I just skipped the NY return because I didn't earn any money there and shouldn't have to file a return with the state. Fuck them.

It's not really weird. California has a huge problem with people coming here to strike it rich, doing so, then abandoning the state in order to avoid taxes on the money they made while working here.

They're not exactly out of line in asserting that you earned that income while living in the state, even if you "happen" to move elsewhere just before selling your ISOs/RSUs.

But if you move somewhere else before they vest, you earned the money on the vest date, not the grant date. My four year grant is not “earned” the day I sign it. It’s incentive for four years of work.

Yes, but as far as I know that’s not the type of situation CA is generally chasing people down over. Maybe there are exceptions but I do agree with you that in typical situations it should be about when the equity vested, not when it was granted.

My reading of the tax code in California is that the tax is pro-rated over the time you were resident in CA. E.g you get a grant with a 4 year vest in California and move away after 1 year: 1st year California gets all the calculated tax, second they want 1/2, 3rd year 1/3, 4th year 1/4. Roughly like that (it’s actually counted in days).

Unvested grants aren't income. California is wrong. This is just a middle finger to people leaving the state, a group that conveniently happens to have no representation in the state government.

New York too. They tax based on the number of days spent in New York divided by the number of days between grant and vest dates.

I don't know of any state that does that. What state is your company in?

New York does this.

I'm remote, out of state for years and still have to pay taxes on my RSUs to NY.

They are split automatically at my company. If 4 year vesting, you live 2 years in CA, 2 years in MI, 50% of the income is counted as income for each states taxes.

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