re: Employee Stock Purchase Program

quote:

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if inside1 years time it is reported as income instead of capital gains.

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Any sale (not just your company stock) inside of one year is short-term capital gains, which is taxed at the rate of ordinary income. Sales after 1 year are long-term capital gains. There's nothing special here about your plan.

Depending on your tax bracket, if you sell immediately the ST gains tax rate is larger than the 10% discount. Even the LT gains tax rate is more than 10%, so I'd be leery of doing this with a company that isn't doing well.

If you were getting a 1 to 1 match instead it would be a different story.

Edit: Please ignore the section I just underlined. I obviously wasn't thinking clearly, you pay tax on the profit, not the sale amount.

You're getting free money by investing in the ESPP, do it. I have no idea whether it's solid enough to keep for a full year.