How should I report my RSUs in my tax return
Here's an article on it that might help: http://thefinancebuff.com/restricted-stock-units-rsu-sales-and.html One of the tricky things is that you probably have the value of the vested shares and withheld taxes already on your W-2. This confuses everyone including the IRS (they sent me one of those audits-by-mail one year, where the issue was they wanted to double-count stock compensation that was on both 1099-B and W-2; a quick letter explaining this and they were happy). The general idea is that when you first irrevocably own the stock (it vests) then that's income, because you're receiving something of value. So this goes on a W-2 and is taxed as income, not capital gains. Conceptually you've just spent however many dollars in income to buy stock, so that's your basis on the stock. For tax paid, if your employer withheld taxes, it should be included in your W-2. In that case you would not separately list it elsewhere. "Your employer should send you a statement with this information. If they didn't, you should still be able to find it through E*Trade. Navigate to: Trading & Portfolios>Portfolios. Select the stock plan account. Under ""Restricted Stock"", you should see a list of your grants. If you click on the grant in question, you should see a breakdown of how many shares were vested and released by date. It will also tell you the cost basis per share and the amount of taxes withheld. You calculate your cost basis by multiplying the number of released shares by the cost basis per share. You can ignore the ordinary income tax and taxes withheld since they will already have been included on your W2 earnings and withholdings. Really all you need to do is report the capital gain or loss from the cost basis (which if you sold right away will be rather small)."
What, if anything, do I need to do? Thanks! Nothing really.  Depending on what information you provided on SS-4, the IRS may come asking for payroll tax returns etc. In that case you'll have to respond describing the situation. If they don't - you won't. IRS pub 521 has all the information you need. Expenses reimbursed. If you are reimbursed for your expenses and you   use the cash method of accounting, you can deduct your expenses either   in the year you paid them or in the year you received the   reimbursement. If you use the cash method of accounting, you can   choose to deduct the expenses in the year you are reimbursed even   though you paid the expenses in a different year. See Choosing when to   deduct, next. If you deduct your expenses and you receive the   reimbursement in a later year, you must include the reimbursement in   your income on Form 1040, line 21 This is not unusual. Anybody who moves near the end of the year can have this problem. The 39 week time test also can be an issue that span over 2 tax years. I would take the deduction for the expenses as soon a I could, and then count the income in the later year if they pay me back. IF they do so before April 15th, then I would put them on the same tax form to make things easier. "Taxes are triggered when you sell the individual stock.      The IRS doesn't care which of your accounts the money is in.  They view all your bank and brokerage accounts as if they are one big account mashed together.   That kind of lumping is standard accounting practice for businesses. P/L, balance sheets, cash flow statements etc. will clump cash accounts as ""cash"".  Taxes are also triggered when they pay you a dividend.  That's why ETFs are preferable to mutual funds; ETFs automatically fold the dividends back into the ETF's value, so it doesn't cause a taxable event.  Less paperwork.  None of the above applies to retirement accounts.  They are special.  You don't report activity inside retirement accounts, because it would be very hard for regular folk to do that reporting, so that would discourage them from taking IRAs.   Taxes are paid at withdrawal time (or in Roth's, never.)" You will be liable to pay the tax For the 2017 year of assessment (1 March 2016 - 28 February 2017) if you earned less than R75 000 you will not have to pay any tax The annual budget speach is this week and the new tax rates will be released but most likely that R75 000 will increase to R78 000+- so if you earn less than that tax would not even be applicable on you, Should you earn in a tax year more than R75 000 then would be able to do your own tax return and payments via E-Filling on SARS's website : http://www.sarsefiling.co.za/ But if you earn less than R350 000 then you don't have to submit a tax return, but there is nothing that stops you from submitting one if you feel that you want to. You can use https://www.taxtim.com/za/ to help you with other questions  you might have. You can potentially bring down your tax-able income by showing a loss in capital value of your equipment that you purchased that is now worth less than it was when you initially purchased it, but these are all things you should discuss with a tax practitioner, I am not entirely sure how you will show a loss in capital value as a sole-proprietor, that is what you will be since you are not a company. You don't need to file or do anything. The bank will report all transfers over 10 000, but chances are slim that it will even be looked at, if you don't do this every week. Worst case, someone will ask you about the source, and you tell them exactly what you wrote above (I had multiple international transfers over 60k and nobody ever asked). You said you paid his tuition, and he is now paying you back, so in case someone asks, you should be able to produce the documentation on the tuition payment - a bill, or your bank statement showing you paid it; and the amount should be matching, so you have proof. Note that if he pays you interest, it is taxable income. You are obligated to list it on your next tax filing. If you received shares as part of a bonus you needed to pay income tax on the dollar valuse of those shares at the time you received them. This income tax is based on the dollar value of the bonus and has nothing to do with the shares. If you have since sold these shares you will need to report any capital gain or loss you made from their dollar value when you received them. If you made a gain you would need to pay capital gains tax on the profits (if you held them for more than a year you would get a discount on the capital gains tax you have to pay). If you made a loss you can use that capital loss to reduce any other capital gains in that income year, reduce any other income up to $3000 per year, or carry any additional capital loss forward to future income years to reduce any gains or income (up to $3000 per year) you do have in the future. You report each position separately. You do this on form 8949. 7 positions is nothing, it will take you 5 minutes. There's a tip on form 8949 that says this, though: For Part I (short term transactions):  Note. You may aggregate all short-term transactions reported on   Form(s) 1099-B showing basis was reported to the IRS and for which no   adjustments or codes are required. Enter the total directly on   Schedule D, line 1a; you are not required to report these transactions   on Form 8949 (see instructions). For Part II (long term transactions): Note. You may aggregate all long-term transactions reported on Form(s)   1099-B showing basis was reported to the IRS and for which no   adjustments or codes are required. Enter the total directly on   Schedule D, line 8a; you are not required to report these transactions   on Form 8949 (see instructions). If the 1099B in your case shows basis for each transaction as reported to the IRS - you're in luck, and don't have to type them all in separately. As the owner of the S-corp, it is far easier for you to move money in/out of the company as contributions and distributions rather than making loans to the company. Loans require interest payments, 1099-INT forms, and have tax consequences, whereas the distributions don't need to be reported because you pay taxes on net profits regardless of whether the money was distributed. If you were paid interest, disregard this answer. I don't know if or how you could re-categorize the loan once there's a 1099-INT involved. If no interest was ever paid, you just need to account for it properly: If the company didn't pay you any interest and never issued you a 1099-INT form (i.e. you wrote a check to the company, no promissory note, no tax forms, no payments, no interest, etc.) then you can categorize that money as a capital contribution. You can likewise take that money back out of the company as a capital distribution and neither of these events are taxable nor do they need to be reported to the IRS. In Quickbooks, create the following Equity accounts -- one for each shareholder making capital contributions and distributions: When putting money into the company, deposit into your corporate bank account and use the Capital Contribution equity account. When taking money out of the company, write yourself a check and use the Distributions account. At the end of every tax year, you can close out your Contributions and Distributions to Retained Earnings by making a general journal entry. For example, debit retained earnings and credit distributions on Dec 31 every year to zero-out the distributions account. For contributions, do the reverse and credit retained earnings. There are other ways of recording these transactions -- for example I think some people just use a Member Capital equity account instead of separate accounts for contributions and distributions -- and QB might warn you about posting journal entries to the special Retained Earnings account at the end of the year. In any case, this is how my CPA set up my books and it's been working well enough for many years. Still, never a bad idea to get a second opinion from your CPA. Be sure to pay yourself a reasonable salary, you can't get out of payroll taxes and just distribute profits -- that's a big red flag that can trigger an audit. If you're simply distributing back the money you already put into the company, that should be fine. As you have income from Business / Profession, you would need to use form ITR4S Does this make sense? I'm concerned that by buying shares with post tax income, I'll have ended up being taxed twice or have increased my taxable income. ... The company will then re-reimburse me for the difference in stock price between the vesting and the purchase share price. Sure.  Assuming you received a 100-share RSU for shares worth $10, and your marginal tax rate is 30% (all made up numbers), either: or So you're in the same spot either way.  You paid $300 to get $1,000 worth of stock. Taxes are the same as well.  The full value of the RSU will count as income either way, and you'll either pay tax on the gains of the 100 shares in your RSU our you'll pay tax on gains on the 70 shares in your RSU and the 30 shares you bought.  Since they're reimbursing you for any difference the cost basis will be the same (although you might get taxed on the reimbursement, but that should be a relatively small amount). This first year I wanted to keep all of the shares, due to tax reasons and because believe the share price will go up. I don't see how this would make a difference from a tax standpoint. You're going to pay tax on the RSU either way - either in shares or in cash.  how does the value of the shares going up make a difference in tax? Additionally I'm concerned that by doing this I'm going to be hit by my bank for GBP->USD exchange fees, foreign money transfer charges, broker purchase fees etc.  That might be true - if that's the case then you need to decide whether to keep fighting or decide if it's worth the transaction costs. You're asking three different questions...  Q1: What's to stop people not reporting income earned in this manner?  A: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The IRS doesn't have the means to keep track of your cash flow and your reported taxes on the fly.  Q2: How could the IRS possibly keep track of that? A: When you get audited. If it ever did come up that things didn't balance you would end up owing back taxes, with interest and possibly fines.  Q3: Moral obligations aside... why report? A: Since you've dismissed 'doing your duty as a citizen' as a moral obligation, the only other real one is that it's a pain in the butt to get audited and it is expensive if you lie and get caught. "ITR1 or ITR2 needs to be filed. Declare the income through freelancing in the section ""income from other sources""" You do actually have some profits (whatever is left from donations). The way it goes is that you report everything on your Schedule C. You will report this: Your gross profits will then flow to Net Profit (line 31) since you had no other expenses (unless you had some other expenses, like paypal fees, which will appear in the relevant category in part II), and from line 31 it will go to your 1040 for the final tax calculation. Long ago when I was applying for my first mortgage I had to list all my income and assets. At the time I had some US Savings Bonds from payroll deduction. I asked about them. The loan officer told me that unless I was willing/planning on selling them to make the down payment, they were immaterial to the loan application. So unless you have a habit of turning RSUs into cash, or are willing to do so for the down payment, it is no different from having money in a 401K or IRA: the restrictions on selling them make them illiquid. "I'm assuming that by saying ""I'm a US resident now"" you're referring to the residency determination for tax purposes. Should I file a return in the US even though there is no income here ? Yes. US taxes its residents for tax purposes (which is not the same as residents for immigration or other purposes) on worldwide income. If yes, do I get credits for the taxes I paid in India. What form   would I need to submit for the same ? I am assuming this form has to   be issued by IT Dept in India or the employer in India ? The IRS doesn't require you to submit your Indian tax return with your US tax return, however they may ask for it later if your US tax return comes under examination. Generally, you claim foreign tax credits using form 1116 attached to your tax return. Specifically for India there may also be some clause in the Indo-US tax treaty that might be relevant to you. Treaty claims are made using form 8833 attached to your tax return, and I suggest having a professional (EA/CPA licensed in your State) prepare such a return. Although no stock transactions were done last year, should I still   declare the value of total stocks I own ? If so what is an approx. tax   rate or the maximum tax rate. Yes, this is done using form 8938 attached to your tax return and also form 114 (FBAR) filed separately with FinCEN. Pay attention: the forms are very similar with regard to the information you provide on them, but they go to different agencies and have different filing requirements and penalties for non-compliance. As to tax rates - that depends on the types of stocks and how you decide to  treat them. Generally, the tax rate for PFIC is very high, so that if any of your stocks are classified as PFIC - you'd better talk to a professional tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) about how to deal with them. Non-PFIC stocks are dealt with the same as if they were in the US, unless you match certain criteria described in the instructions to form 5471 (then a different set of rules apply, talk to a licensed tax adviser). I will be transferring most of my stock to my father this year, will   this need to be declared ? Yes, using form 709. Gift tax may be due. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). I have an apartment in India this year, will this need to be declared   or only when I sell the same later on ? If there's no income from it - then no (assuming you own it directly in your own name, for indirect ownership - yes, you do), but when you sell you will have to declare the sale and pay tax on the gains. Again, treaty may come into play, talk to a tax adviser. Also, be aware of Section 121 exclusion which may make it more beneficial for you to sell earlier."