Hello,
Last year I've received a RSU reward of stock of the company I work for. The value of the reward (from the vesting day) has been reported by my employer on my W2. I did however decide to receive a cash equivalent instead of the actual stocks. So instead of stocks the company transferred certain amount in USD to my bank account. The amount corresponds to the W2 amount (value of vested stocks). So far so good...
The problem is that the company finance guys tell me that from the "actual events" perspective I did receive stocks (so vesting took place) and then immediately I sold those stocks back to company for the same value (and the $$$ have been transferred to my account). The tax person in the company says that in such case I should not only report the W2 income (the reward, which is kinda obvious) but also report the sale of the stocks without change of value (so basically cost basis = proceeds, no profit/loss) as this is what happened.
The situation may or may not be complicated by the fact that my employer is an international company with the main "location" in Europe and while I am hired by an American company, I work in the US, I get W2 etc (as we have a proper structure in the US) the stocks are not traded in the US and I haven't received any kind of 1099 for this "no-income" transaction. It was not traded on the regular stock market anyway so probably even if everything happened "in the US" it wouldn't matter.
My questions:
1. Should I report this (by the looks of it paper-only) no-income transaction in my taxes? I am talking about the sale and not the W2 reward (vesting) as it's obvious that I must report and pay taxes on that part.
2. If yes, should I just "input" it manually with cost basis = proceeds = actual value of the reward which is on W2 (and landed on my account)?
3. If yes, should I report it as non-covered / 1099 not sent to IRS kind of transaction>
4. Does it change anything that the company is in Europe (no taxes paid there)?
5. Anything else I should do/consider?
Thank you!!!
