How to file income tax returns for profits from ESPP stock?
Consult a professional CA. For shares sold outside the Indian Stock Exchanges, these will be treated as normal Long Term Capital Gains if held more than one year. The rate would be 10% without Indexation and 20% with Indexation. If the stocks are held for less than 1 years, it will be short term gains and taxed according you to tax bracket. I did this for the last tax year so hopefully I can help you. You should get a 1099-B (around the same time you're getting your W-2(s)) from the trustee (whichever company facilitates the ESPP) that has all the information you need to file. You'll fill out a Schedule D and (probably) a Form 8949 to describe the capital gains and/or losses from your sale(s). It's no different than if you had bought and sold stock with any brokerage.
How would I go about doing this? Are there any tax laws I should be worried about? Just report it as a regular sale of asset on your form 8949 (or form 4797 if used for trade/business/rental). It will flow to your Schedule D for capital gains tax. Use form 1116 to calculate the foreign tax credit for the taxes on the gains you'd pay in India (if any). It really depends.  If it is offered as compensation (ie in leiu of, or in addition to salary or cash bonus) then it would be reportable income, and if sold later for a profit then that would be taxable as gains.  If this share is purchased as an investment at current value then it would be treated like other securities most likely gains realized at sale.  Any discount could be considered income but there are some goofy rules surrounding this enacted to prevent tax evasion and some to spur growth.  That is the answer in a nut shell.  It is far more complicated in reality as there are somewhere around 2000 pages of regulations deal with different exceptions and scenerios. "(Insert the usual disclaimer that I'm not any sort of tax professional; I'm just a random guy on the Internet who occasionally looks through IRS instructions for fun. Then again, what you're doing here is asking random people on the Internet for help, so here goes.) The gigantic book of ""How to File Your Income Taxes"" from the IRS is called Publication 17. That's generally where I start to figure out where to report what. The section on Royalties has this to say: Royalties from copyrights, patents, and oil, gas, and mineral properties are taxable as ordinary income. In most cases, you report royalties in Part I of Schedule E (Form 1040). However, if you hold an operating oil, gas, or mineral interest or are in business as a self-employed writer, inventor, artist, etc., report your income and expenses on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040).  It sounds like you are receiving royalties from a copyright, and not as a self-employed writer. That means that you would report the income on Schedule E, Part I. I've not used Schedule E before, but looking at the instructions for it, you enter this as ""Royalty Property"". For royalty property, enter code “6” on line 1b and leave lines 1a and 2 blank for that property. So, in Line 1b, part A, enter code 6. (It looks like you'll only use section A here as you only have one royalty property.) Then in column A, Line 4, enter the royalties you have received. The instructions confirm that this should be the amount that you received listed on the 1099-MISC. Report on line 4 royalties from oil, gas, or mineral properties (not including operating interests); copyrights; and patents. Use a separate column (A, B, or C) for each royalty property. If you received $10 or more in royalties during 2016, the payer should send you a Form 1099-MISC or similar statement by January 31, 2017, showing the amount you received. Report this amount on line 4.  I don't think that there's any relevant Expenses deductions you could take on the subsequent lines (though like I said, I've not used this form before), but if you had some specific expenses involved in producing this income it might be worth looking into further. On Line 21 you'd subtract the 0 expenses (or subtract any expenses you do manage to list) and put the total. It looks like there are more totals to accumulate on lines 23 and 24, which presumably would be equally easy as you only have the one property. Put the total again on line 26, which says to enter it on the main Form 1040 on line 17 and it thus gets included in your income." Adding to webdevduck's answer: Before you calculate your profits, you can pay money tax-free into a pension fund for the company director (that is you). Then if you pay yourself dividends, if you made lots of profit you don't have to pay it all as dividends. You can take some where the taxes are low, and then pay more money in later years.   What you must NOT do is just take the money. The company may be yours, but the money isn't. It has to be paid as salary or dividend. (You can give the company director a loan, but that loan has to be repaid. Especially if a limited company goes bankrupt, the creditors would insist that loans from the company are repaid).  After a bit more checking, here's the optimal approach, perfectly legal, expected and ethical:  You pay yourself a salary of £676 per month. That's the point where you get all the advantages of national insurance without having to pay; above that you would have to pay 13.8% employers NI contributions and 12% employee's NI contributions, so for £100 salary the company has to pay £113.80 and you receive £88.00. Below £676 you pay nothing.  You deduct the salary from your revenue, then you deduct all the deductible business costs (be wise in what you try to deduct), then you pay whatever you want into a pension fund. Well, up to I think £25,000 per year.  The rest is profit. The company pays 19% corporation tax on profits. Then you pay yourself dividends. Any dividends until your income is £11,500 per year are tax free. Then the next £5,000 per year are tax free. Then any dividends until income + dividends = £45,000 per year is taxed at 7.5%. It's illegal to pay so much in dividends that the company can't pay its bills.  Above £45,000 you decide if you want your money now and pay more tax, or wait and get it tax free. Every pound of dividend above £45,000 a year you pay 32.5% tax, but there is nobody forcing you to take the money. You can wait until business is bad, or you want a loooong holiday, or you retire. So at that time you will stay below £45,000 per year and pay only 7.5% tax. "I dug up an old article on Motley Fool and one approach they mention is to get the stock certificates and then sell them to a friend: If the company was liquidated, you should receive a 1099-DIV form at    year's end showing a liquidating distribution. Treat this as if you   sold the stock for the amount of the distribution. The date of ""sale""   is the date that the distribution took place. Using your original cost   basis in the shares, you can now compute your loss. If the company hasn't actually been liquidated, you'll need to make   sure it's totally worthless before you claim a loss. If you have   worthless stock that's not worth the hassle of selling through your   broker, you can sell it to a friend (or cousin, aunt, or uncle) for   pennies. (However, you can't sell the stock to a spouse, siblings,   parents, grandparents, or lineal descendants.) Here's one way to do   it: Send the certificate to your stock-transfer agent. Explain that the shares have been sold, and ask to cancel the old shares and issue   a new certificate to the new owner. Some brokerages will offer you a quicker alternative, by buying all of your shares of the stock for a penny. They do it to help out   their customers; in addition, over time, some of the shares may   actually become worth more than the penny the brokers paid for them. By selling the shares, you have a closed transaction with the stock and can declare a tax loss. Meanwhile, your friend, relative, or   broker, for a pittance, has just bought a placemat or birdcage liner." SXL is a Master Limited Partnership so all of the income is pass-through.  Your equity purchase entitles you to a fraction of the 66% of the company that is not owned by Energy Transfer Partners.  You should have been receiving the K-1s from SXL from the time that you bought the shares.   Without knowing your specific situation, you will likely have to amend your returns for at most 6 years (if the omitted amount of gross income exceeds 25% of your gross income originally stated as littleadv has graciously pointed out in the comments) and include Schedule E to report the additional income (you'll also be able to deduct any depreciation, losses etc. that are passed through the entity on that form, so that will offset some of the gains).  As littleadv has recommended, speak with a tax professional (CPA/EA or attorney) before you take any further steps, as everyone's situation is a bit different. This Forbes article has a nice overview of the MLP.  There's a click-through to get to it, but it's not paywalled. You need to report the income from any work as income, regardless of if you invest it, spend it, or put it in your mattress (ignoring tax advantaged accounts like 401ks).  You then also need to report any realized gains or losses from non-tax advantaged accounts, as well as any dividends received.  Gains and losses are realized when you actually sell, and is the difference between the price you bought for, and the price you sold for.  Gains are taxed at the capital gains rate, either short-term or long-term depending on how long you owned the stock.   The tax system is complex, and these are just the general rules.  There are lots of complications and special situations, some things are different depending on how much you make, etc.  The IRS has all of the forms and rules online.  You might also consider having a professional do you taxes the first time, just to ensure that they are done correctly.  You can then use that as an example in future years. For tax purposes you will need to file as an employee (T4 slips and tax withheld automatically), but also as an entrepreneur. I had the same situation myself last year. Employee and self-employed is a publication from Revenue Canada that will help you. You need to fill out the statement of business activity form and keep detailed records of all your deductible expenses. Make photocopies and keep them 7 years. May I suggest you take an accountant to file your income tax form. More expensive but makes you less susceptible to receive Revenue Canada inspectors for a check-in.  If you can read french, you can use this simple spreadsheet for your expenses. Your accountant will be happy. From the instructions: If you do not need to make any adjustments to the basis or type of   gain or loss (short-term or long-term) reported to you on Form 1099-B   (or substitute statement) or to your gain or loss for any transactions   for which basis has been reported to the IRS (normally reported on   Form 8949 with box A checked), you do not have to include those   transactions on Form 8949. Instead, you can report summary information   for those transactions directly on Schedule D. For more information,   see Exception 1, later. However, in case of ESPP and RSU, it is likely that you actually do need to make adjustments. Since 2014, brokers are no longer required to track basis for these, so you better check that the calculations are correct. If the numbers are right and you just summarized instead of reporting each on a separate line, its probably not an issue. As long as the gains reported are correct, no-one will waste their time on you. If you missed several thousand dollars because of incorrect calculations, some might think you were intentionally trying to hide something by aggregating and may come after you. I agree with the other comments that you should not buy/hold your company stock even if given at a discount. If equity is provided as part of the compensation package (Options/Restrictive Stock Units RSU)then this rule does not apply. As a matter of diversification, you should not have majority equity stake of other companies in the same sector (e.g. technology) as your employer. Asset allocation and diversification if done in the right way, takes care of the returns. Buying and selling on the same day is generally not allowed for ESPP. Taxation headaches. This is from personal experience (Cisco Systems). I had options issued in Sept 2008 at 18$ which vested regularly. I exited at various points - 19$,20$,21$,23$ My friend held on to all of it hoping for 30$ is stuck. Options expire if you leave your employment. ESPP shares though remain. "That's a tricky question and you should consult a tax professional that specializes on taxation of non-resident aliens and foreign expats. You should also consider the provisions of the tax treaty, if your country has one with the US. I would suggest you not to seek a ""free advice"" on internet forums, as the costs of making a mistake may be hefty. Generally, sales of stocks is not considered trade or business effectively connected to the US if that's your only activity. However, being this ESPP stock may make it connected to providing personal services, which makes it effectively connected. I'm assuming that since you're filing 1040NR, taxes were withheld by the broker, which means the broker considered this effectively connected income." The HMRC website says: Stock dividends are treated as income by virtue of CTA10/S1049, and taxable as savings income under Chapter 5 of Part 4 of ITTOIA05 (sections 409 to 414). ITTOIA05 is the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005, and says: 409 Charge to tax on stock dividend income (1) Income tax is charged on stock dividend income. (2) In this Chapter “stock dividend income” means the income that is treated as arising under section 410. 411 Income charged (1) Tax is charged under this Chapter on the amount of stock dividend income treated for income tax purposes as arising in the tax year. (2) That amount is the cash equivalent of the share capital on the issue of which the stock dividend income arises (see section 412), grossed up by reference to the dividend ordinary rate for the tax year. The company will have to pay 20% tax on its profits. Doesn't matter how these profits are earned. Profits = Income minus all money you spend to get the income.  However, you can't just take the profits out of the company. The company can pay you a salary, on which income tax, national insurance, and employer's national insurance have to be paid at the usual rate. The company can pay you a dividend, on which tax has to be paid. And the company can pay money into the director's pension fund, which is tax free.  Since the amount of company revenue can be of interest, I'd be curious myself what the revenue of such a company would be. And if the company makes losses, I'm sure HMRC won't allow you to get any tax advantages from such losses. I'm assuming this was a cashless exercise because you had income show up on your w-2. When I had a similar situation, I did the following: If you made $50,000 in salary and $10,000 in stock options then your W-2 now says $60,000. You'll record that on your taxes just like it was regular income.  You'll also get a form that talks about your stock sale.   But remember, you bought and sold the stock within seconds.  Your forms will probably look like this: Bought stock: $10,000 Sold stock: $10,000 + $50 commission Total profit (loss): ($50) From the Turbotax/IRS view point, you lost $50 on the sale of the stock because you paid the commission, but the buy and sell prices were identical or nearly identical. "From April 2017 the plan is that there is now also going to be a ""Lifetime ISA"" (in addition to the Help to Buy ISA). Assuming those plans do not change, they government will give 25% after each year until you are 50, and the maximum you can put in per year will be £4000. Catches:  You can only take the money out for certain ""life events"", currently: Buying a house below £450000 anywhere in the country (not just London).  Passing 60 years of age. If you take it out before or for another reason, you lose the government bonus plus 5%, ie. it currently looks like you will be left with 95% of the total of the money you paid in. You cannot use the bonus payments from this one together with bonus payments from a Help to Buy ISA to buy a home. However you can transfer an existing Help to Buy ISA into this one come 2017. While you are not asking about pensions, it is worth mentioning for other readers that while 25% interest per year sounds great, if you use it for pension purposes, consider that this is after tax, so if you pay mostly 20% tax on your income the difference is not that big (and if your employer matches your contributions up to a point, then it may not be worth it). If you pay a significant amount of tax at 40% or higher, then it may not make sense for pension purposes. Tax bands and the ""rates"" on this ISA may change, of course. On the other hand, if you intend to use the money for a house/flat purchase in 2 or more years' time, then it would seem like a good option. For you specifically: This ""only"" covers £4000 per year, ie. not the full amount you talked about, but it is likely a good idea for you to spread things out anyway. That way, if one thing turns out to be not as good as other alternatives it has less impact - it is less likely that all your schemes will turn out to be bad luck. Within the M25 the £450000 limit may restrict you to a small house or flat in 5-10 years time. Again, prices may stall as they seem barely sustainable now. But it is hard to predict (measures like this may help push them upwards :) ).  On the plus side, you could then still use the money for pension although I have a hard time seeing governments not adjusting this sort of account between now and your 60th birthday. Like pension funds, there is an element of luck/gambling involved and I think a good strategy is to spread things if you can."