In the great scheme of problems, a huge tax bill resulting from a financial windfall has to be one of the best headaches to have. Such is the quandary that 27-year old Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is facing, after revealing plans to sell $5 billion worth of stock options, which will result in a $2 billion tax bill.
This will likely be the largest individual tax bill ever paid out to the IRS and it will immediately induct the young billionaire into what Macke and I call the Taxpayer Hall of Fame.
What’s even more amazing is that he’s choosing to do it. Zuckerberg does not have to exercise his stock options now. By doing so, he is registering major monetary gains that will be taxed as ordinary income at a 35% rate.
Sure, he’ll still have many billions left to get by on after writing his checks to the Federal government and California –the State government will rake in a $500 million chunk of change too. But it didn’t have to be this way.
“Not to be a cynic, but this is pure P-R,” Macke says, arguing that the payout is ultimately designed to make Facebook look better in the eyes
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