IRS Issues Option Tax Warning
>The US Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) described claims that promoters are encouraging taxpayers to make to request refunds of ordinary income tax or AMT on their stock options and cautioned that such representations are often “unsupportable.”
“We are alerting taxpayers to be wary of unsupported claims
that stock option gains are not subject to income tax or
AMT,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Greg Jenner
said in the announcement. “Taxpayers should be very
cautious about claiming refunds on this basis.”
>According to the announcement, gains from the exercise of nonstatutory stock options are generally subject to ordinary income tax. Statutory stock options (which include incentive stock options) are not subject to ordinary income tax when they are granted to an employee or exercised by the employee. However, gains on statutory stock options are subject to AMT when the options are exercised, the government notice said.
The notice is available at http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/notice200428.pdf .