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It is outrageos!!! It is just another way to skip paying taxes. If you have a salary, you have to pay 12% on payroll taxes (for the first 102k), plus 9.25% CA taxes, and probably 32% personal income taxes.

What they are getting, is security, housing, travel expenses to private islands, parties, etc.... all of those end up as "businness expenses", which obviously reduce taxes.

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They're paying plenty of tax whenever they cash out.

For example: "After cashing in more than 9 million shares valued at $3.7 billion last year, 16 Google insiders will owe the Golden State as much as $380 million in taxes -- enough to cover the salaries of more than 3,000 state workers." http://www.boston.com/business/taxes/articles/2007/01/06/goo...

True, but there is a huge difference. They are paying taxes as for "capital gains", which means they get taxed only 15%, instead of a normal income ( which is over 30%). This is the same thing that Buffet was saying that the rich people are getting taxed a lot less (percentage wise) then their secretaries.

Interesting. If I were them I'd move to a state that didn't have a state capital gains tax before cashing out. Then again, I guess when you cash out 3.7 billion dollars in a single year, 380 million seems like pocket change.

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