Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees Transcript: Hi, I’m Tom Lo with Vested Financial Planning. I’m here to help you understand what AMT is. AMT is Alternative Minimum Tax and the way I help clients understand AMT is that you can think of it as a parallel tax calculation. Every time you do your taxes, it gets calculated ordinary income, and also with AMT, whichever one is higher is the one you end up paying. The key thing to understand about AMT is it treats different typ ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees What are ISO’s? Transcript: Hi, I’m Tom Lo with Vested Financial Planning. I’m here today to help you understand what are ISOs. ISOs or Incentive Stock Options are simply the right, but not the obligation to buy stock in your company. The key thing to understand about ISOs is their tax treatment. When you exercise ISOs, you don’t have to pay any ordinary income tax. That’s different from other forms of equity comp, like Non-Qualified S ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees What to Do When My IPO Lock-Up Expires? Transcript:   In this video, I explain three steps to prepare for you IPO lock-up expiring. Hi, I’m Tom Lo with Vested Financial Planning. I’m here to help you answer the question: What should I do when my IPO lock-up expires? There are three steps you want to take. Step one is identify any valid near term cash needs. For example, if you have a down payment or emergency fund, sell to fund th ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees What Should You Do If You Have Too Much Company Stock Transcript: Hi, I’m Tom lo from Vested Financial Planning and I’m here to answer the question “What do I do if I have too much company stock?” So, in four 4 steps Step 1: is to identify if you have any short-term valid cash needs. This would be things like funding an emergency fund or saving for a downpayment. Go ahead sell the stock. Take the cash off the table and use it for those ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees In this video, I explain the risks of having concentrated company stock. Why you shouldn’t hold too much company stock Transcript Hi, this is Tom Lo from Vested Financial Planning. I’m here today to help you understand why you should care about having too much company stock. The reason you should care is because there’s a ton more risk and volatility in holding a single company stock versus a diversified portfolio. A great example of t ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees If you’re a Snowflake employee, you had the chance with Snowflake’s early release to sell 25% of your vested equity from 12/15 through 12/31/20. You face an even bigger decision in mid-March when you’ll have the opportunity to sell 100% of your vested equity when your lockup expires completely.  I walked you through how to think about this decision back in my blog post before your mid-December lockup expiration and much of the ad ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees In this video, I explain how to calculate if you have too much company stock. Do you have too much company stock?   Hi, my name is Tom Lo from Vested Financial Planning here today to talk to you about: Do you have too much company stock? Many clients come to me and they ask me this question and the short answer is if you have more than 10 to 20% of your investable assets in your company stock, then you probably have too much. The ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees In this video, I explain why you may have to pay more in taxes on your RSUs than you realize and how to solve that problem. Why Do I Have to Pay More in Taxes on My Restricted Stock Units Transcript   Hi, I’m Tom Lo with Vested Financial Planning. Clients who have RSUs will often be surprised by a big tax bill come April. So let me explain what happens. Typically when you vest your RSUs, the company withholds enough RSUs. Sells to ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees In this video, I explain when you should sell your restricted stock units. When should you sell your restricted stock units transcript:   I’m Tom Lo with Vested Financial Planning. When should you sell your restricted stock units? So this is one of the most common questions I get from my clients. The short answer is I typically recommend you sell your RSUs as soon as you vest. Let me explain why. So RSUs or restricted stock units ..read more

Learn from professional Certified Financial Planner™, Tom Lo. Tom specializes in employee equity and financial planning for Gen X Silicon Valley tech employees If you have more than 10-20 percent of your total investable assets in single company stock, you likely have too much and would be considered “highly concentrated.” I focus on helping Silicon Valley tech professionals with employee equity and many of my clients come to me with 50, 80, and even 95 percent concentration, which is not uncommon in the tech industry with thriving companies like Snowflake and Airbnb and giants like Google, N ..read more