Proper way to record RSUs

Jason Ahrens jason at cougarcorp.net
Mon May 7 19:20:59 EDT 2007


I didn't find anything about this in the Concept guide or the Wiki. I
imagine it is somewhat similar to 8.7 Selling Shares but I'm not
entirely sure.

The way I understand an RSU is the following:

1) Company grants me X RSUs (we'll use 100 for simplicities sake). They
are reserved at grant time, I don't have access.
2) At some point in the future, the RSUs lapse. At this point two things
happen:
    2.a) Y percentage (say 5%) is sold for tax purposes
    2.b) The other 95% go into my account as stock for said company.
They are not fully mine.
3) At some point further in the future, I decide I want to sell some or
all of these stock. These are not subject to capital gains taxes as well.

So there are a few points where it looks like numbers need to be recorded.

1) Optional. These are not mine yet, and can be taken away and I never
see a peny. I would lean to not recording these except for
record-keeping. At this point, they have 0 value to me.

2a) Some percentage is sold for taxes. There's a chance I get some of
this back on my tax return, or that I owe more, so somehow this has to
go to a tax account/expense.
2b) The remainder goes into an Investment account for Stock of the
appropriate type. This much I can figure out :)
For both 2a and 2b, what is the source of the cash to fund these
transactions. I'm guessing some kind of Income...

3) At sale time, I get the full value as cash. Is there anything to
record here for the capital gain requirements, or do I just hold a
certain percentage aside (and how much is good) for tax time?

Given that IANAA, am I close? Can someone help me fill in the blanks?

Thanks

Jason


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