Baker Tax Blog

You have three months left in 2023. There’s still time to save yourself some tax. Here are ten ideas: 1. Do you own or run a company that is a cash basis taxpayer? Consider paying all outstanding invoices by December 31, so you can take the deductions this year. Reach...

A parachute payment, in plain English, is a payment made to an executive when a company is sold, to help him or her land softly. A parachute payment, in tax speak, is more complicated. But here’s the gist: In the 1980’s Congress reacted to the public’s perennial...

I occasionally get asked whether it is possible to transfer a stock option. Listed below are relevant considerations.  Does the plan allow for it?  Carefully read the stock option plan and agreement to see if there are any restrictions on option transfer. There...

“You filed your Section 83(b) election, right?” Silence. “Right?” I gave a presentation a few years ago on how to fix a missed tax code Section 83(b) election. My phone started ringing the moment I returned to my office. Turns out, these get missed. Apparently,...

What do you do, when you receive a 409A valuation for your company that is lower than the exercise price of previously granted stock options? A few years ago I read an article titled, We Spend Too Much Time Celebrating "Start Ups" and Not Enough Time Celebrating "Keep...

So, you’d like to convert your limited liability company, which is taxed as a partnership, into a C corporation? This is generally not hard to do from a pure mechanics perspective.  If your LLC is organized in Delaware, or certain other states, the conversion can be...

Flashback to 2013. You were so excited when you started your company. You handed out stock options right away to your new employees and shared your expectation that the company would sell in a few years for a big pile of cash. Now it's 2023 however, and you're still...

Every year I get a new hard copy set of income tax regulations. These come in four phone book-size volumes. I probably look forward to getting these more than I should—they come at the end of December, and for a tax guy like me it always feels like a belated Christmas...

The following method for providing founders liquidity has been very popular during the last three years: An investor buys common stock from founders during a preferred financing at the preferred price. Those same common shares are then magically exchanged by the...

The tax rates and deduction amounts for the 2023 calendar year are listed below. Federal ordinary income tax rates Single taxpayers If taxable income is between: The tax is:                               0 – 11,000 10% of taxable income                  11,000 –...

Someone just emailed me the following question (paraphrased): "I have a private company client who has approved a new hire grant to their new CEO that includes early exercise. The total exercise price of the option grant is $180,000 and the CEO is planning to exercise...

Let me start with the bad news: I have been persuaded that future token contracts likely do not work. But let's back up. If your offshore entity[1] has not yet minted tokens but you want to get something into the hands of service providers, historically you have had...