Equity Compensation | The Tax Decisions in Order

Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: equity compensation is not one topic, it is a sequence of deadlines, and the expensive mistakes are almost always timing mistakes rather than valuation ones. The 83(b) window is 30 days and cannot be extended. The AMT consequence of an ISO exercise is decided in the year you exercise, not the year you sell. Whether your stock qualifies for QSBS is settled by how the company was capitalised long before you have any say. And a concentrated position is a risk decision that most people postpone until a lock-up forces it. The pages below are ordered the way the decisions actually arrive: what you must elect, then what happens when you exercise, then what happens when you sell, then the state-tax and insider-rule questions that catch people who moved or who hold a title.

Elections and the deadlines that cannot be extended

Exercising: ISOs, NSOs, AMT

Pre-IPO, tender offers and QSBS

Selling, hedging and concentrated positions

Deferred comp and moving states

Equity compensation is where a single wrong month costs more than a decade of fees.

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Equity Compensation: the Tax Decisions, in the Order They Arrive