General Discussion

the keyword is "exercise". See... you can be awarded stock options at any time... but you will not owe any tax on them until they are exercised. At that time the gain is calculated ( current strike price versus the option grant price ) and either long term capital gains is owed or regular income is owed ( depending on how long it has been since you were awarded the option ). If you have held the stock for more than a year, you owe only long term capital gains ( or around 24 percent on the gain of value ), depending on the option price, you may need to spend money to buy the stock at the lower option price ( this is why it is called an option... if the current value is lower than the option price, you have the OPTION to not buy the stock - you can continue to hold the option, owe no taxes, and exercise the option at a later date when the value is higher than the option price ).

However, there is a trick that millionaires and billionaires like Eloon can do ( actually anyone who has stock options, but banks put a lot of rules in place to make this an unusual play ).

You can PLEDGE your stock ( not sell it ) as collateral to a bank loan. The bank will discount the value of the stock and may force you to sell if the stock craters... but they will loan some percentage of value of the stock - let's say 50 percent. Now you take the loan money and live on it, buy homes, yachts, planes, other stock, gold, whatever you like... and you pay NO taxes on the loan. In fact, you will pay a small amount of interest on this loan... and then deduct the interest payment on your income tax - just like a home mortgage. So basically this is now tax free money. Any time the loan comes due, you simply roll it over into a new loan and carry on. Never paying any tax on the stock. When you die you can even pass the stock on to your children or heirs and roll the loans over to them by using a trust to hold the stock. Never paying any income tax on this form of compensation.

The billionaires are laughing at us, especially those who are paid a "high salary" which is taxed at the highest rate by Federal and State governments... those people that typically pay 50 percent of what their salary is in taxes, insurance, other deductions... those people are the real chumps in the USA.