Tax Attorney in Sunnyvale, California

Yes. The U.S. Tax Court designates San Francisco as a regular place of trial at the Phillip Burton Federal Building, 450 Golden Gate Avenue, with periodic San Jose sessions held at the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building, 280 S. 1st Street, San Jose 95113 — roughly nine miles southeast of downtown Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale petitioners typically designate San Francisco for its wider session calendar, with San Jose available for specific sessions; the choice is made on the Tax Court petition. Our federal U.S. Tax Court bar admission is national, and we appear at both locations.

LinkedIn (Microsoft) RSU vesting is W-2 ordinary income at the fair market value of Microsoft stock on the vesting date under IRC §83(a). Microsoft withholds federal at the supplemental flat rate of 22% under IRC §3402(a) on supplemental wages up to $1 million per year, and 37% above that threshold in a single payment. For a Senior, Staff, or Principal Engineer at the LinkedIn Sunnyvale HQ in the 35% or 37% federal bracket with combined base, bonus, RSU, and ESPP income above $400,000, the 22% supplemental rate routinely under-shoots by 10 to 15 percentage points. California has the same gap at 10.3% to 13.3% plus the 1% mental-health surtax on income over $1 million. The cure is to file Form W-4 for additional federal withholding, file DE 4 for additional California withholding, or make estimated payments under IRC §6654. Without that adjustment, a five- or six-figure April balance due plus failure-to-pay penalty and interest is a typical outcome.

On exercise of an Incentive Stock Option, the bargain element (FMV at exercise minus exercise price) is not regular-tax income, but it is an Alternative Minimum Tax preference item under IRC §56(b)(3), reported on Form 6251. If the prior-company stock is private and you cannot sell, you owe the AMT in cash at April 15 with no proceeds to pay it. Resolution paths: (1) Federal §6159 Installment Agreement against the AMT balance — streamlined under $50,000, Form 433-F over that, Partial Pay if the AMT exceeds your CSED-period collection capacity. (2) §7122 Offer in Compromise where the doubt-as-to-collectibility math works. (3) Currently Not Collectible status freezing collection until a liquidity event. (4) The §53 deferred AMT credit recovers the AMT over future years against your AMD or LinkedIn W-2 regular-tax liability. The California side under R&TC §17062 has its own AMT regime with separate state IA and compromise paths.

Both plans are tax-favored under IRC §423. A six-month offering with a 15% discount on the lower of grant-date or purchase-date fair market value (the lookback feature) is standard. A qualifying disposition requires holding the purchased shares for two years from grant and one year from purchase; in that case, the lesser of the grant-date-FMV discount or the actual gain is ordinary income and the remainder is long-term capital gain. A disqualifying disposition (selling before both holding periods) taxes the entire bargain element at purchase as ordinary W-2 income on the disposition-year return. The most common error: counting the ordinary-income piece in W-2 box 1 but failing to step up Schedule D basis by that same amount, taxing the same dollars twice. The 1099-B from Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, or Schwab reports only the purchase-price basis. Form 3922 holds the figures the preparer actually needs.

An IRS exam on an IRC §1202 Qualified Small Business Stock exclusion tests each statutory condition: original issuance directly from the C-corporation, five-year holding period from issuance, C-corporation status throughout the hold (an LLC-to-C conversion under §351 must be properly timed), the $50 million aggregate gross-asset cap under §1202(d), the active-business test under §1202(e), the qualified-trade-or-business limitations under §1202(e)(3), and the redemption rules under §1202(c)(3). California decoupled from §1202 in 2013 under R&TC §17152; the exclusion is federal-only. A Sunnyvale-resident founder selling QSBS owes up to 13.3% California state tax on the full gain even when the federal gain is excluded 100%. Non-grantor trust planning in a no-state-income-tax jurisdiction must be set up before the sale to have any effect.

FTB residency audits follow R&TC §17014 and the closer-connection / domicile framework developed in Appeal of Stephen Bragg (2003-SBE-002), Appeal of Bindley (2018), and Corbett v. FTB. Auditors review where you spent each day of the audit year (calendars, credit card geolocation, flight records, cell-tower data subpoenaed under R&TC §19504), where your family lived, where your driver's license and voter registration sat, where you held property, where your professional licenses and bank accounts were, where your safe-deposit boxes and personal-effects storage was located, and where your dentist, physician, and clergy were. A clean break requires acting like you actually moved: change the license, vehicle registration, voter registration, mailing address, primary doctor, and sell or convert the Sunnyvale residence. Many post-2020 Sunnyvale-to-Austin or Bellevue moves were preserved as second-home arrangements with continued California day counts above the §17014(d) presumption — those audits are now landing.

California Constitution Article XIIIA §1 (Prop 13) fixes the assessed value at the base-year purchase price plus 2% annual inflation cap. The Santa Clara County Assessor at 70 W. Hedding Street, San Jose 95110 sets that value. The Annual Notice of Assessment lands each June or July. To appeal, file BOE-305-AH with the Santa Clara County Assessment Appeals Board, also at 70 W. Hedding Street, within 60 days of a Supplemental or Escape Assessment Notice, or between July 2 and September 15 for the regular roll under R&TC §1603. As of June 1, 2026, the Clerk of the Board charges a non-refundable filing fee of $290 per parcel for residential and $675 per parcel for commercial. Prop 8 (R&TC §51) decline-in-value applications are a separate informal route to a downward adjustment in down markets. Prop 19 (2021) parent-child reassessment exclusion now applies only to the parent's primary residence and only if the child makes it their primary residence within one year.

Sunnyvale Municipal Code Chapter 3.16 imposes a 12.5% Transient Occupancy Tax on short-term rentals under 30 days, collected by the host and remitted monthly. Airbnb collects and remits TOT directly to the City; other platforms do not. Hosts on Vrbo, Booking.com, Furnished Finder, and direct bookings must register with the City, file monthly remittance forms, and pay the 12.5% plus any late fees and interest. A separate City business license under Chapter 5.04 is required if you operate three or more spaces. The City has begun cross-referencing platform data with TOT registrations. Resolution typically involves voluntary back-filing of the missed monthly periods, payment of base TOT plus penalty and interest, and a separate state-side §17071 Schedule E or Schedule C inclusion of the rental income on the federal and California 540 returns, often without proper §469 passive-activity classification or §280A(d) personal-use day counting.

If the aggregate maximum value of all foreign accounts you hold or have signature authority over exceeded $10,000 at any point in the calendar year, you must file FinCEN Form 114 (the FBAR) by April 15 with an automatic six-month extension to October 15. Reportable accounts include Indian NRE, NRO, NRI savings, PPF, EPF, demat brokerage, fixed deposits, and Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, and Vietnamese bank, securities, and pension accounts. Above the higher Form 8938 thresholds (which scale with filing status and residency) you also file Form 8938 with your 1040. Non-willful FBAR penalties run up to $10,000 per violation per year; willful penalties reach the greater of $100,000 or 50% of the account balance. The Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures (Streamlined Domestic or Foreign) clean up past non-compliance for non-willful taxpayers at a 5% miscellaneous offshore penalty (Domestic) or zero penalty (Foreign). Streamlined certification under penalties of perjury is the controlling document and must be drafted with care.

Yahoo's 2017 Verizon transaction split the operating business (which became Oath, then Yahoo under Apollo since 2021) from the Asian-asset holdings (which became Altaba and wound down). Sunnyvale residents who held legacy Yahoo RSUs and options through that sequence may now hold Yahoo (Apollo) private-company equity, residual Altaba distributions, or replacement awards from various successor entities. Vesting events on private Yahoo (Apollo) RSUs are still IRC §83(a) ordinary income at FMV on vest, but the FMV question turns on §409A valuations rather than a public market price — and that gap is the source of most preparer errors. Altaba liquidating distributions are taxed under §331 as exchanges with capital gain or loss. Replacement awards under §424 substitution rules retain ISO character only if the strict substitution conditions were satisfied at the corporate-action date. Old Yahoo cost basis carried over through brokerage transitions to E*TRADE, Morgan Stanley, or Fidelity is frequently wrong on the 1099-B, and the fix is a Form 8949 Code B basis adjustment.

The AMD-Xilinx all-stock acquisition under IRC §368(a)(1)(B) was structured as a tax-free reorganization. Xilinx shareholders received 1.7234 AMD shares per Xilinx share. Tax consequences: (1) Original Xilinx cost basis carries over to the AMD shares at the same ratio under §358 — no taxable event on the exchange itself. (2) Unvested Xilinx RSUs converted to AMD RSUs preserve the original §83(a) vest schedule, but new vests deliver AMD shares at AMD FMV on vest. (3) Unvested Xilinx ISOs that converted to AMD ISOs under §424 substitution had to satisfy the strict ratio and spread tests at the closing date; failures convert the ISO to an NSO with W-2 ordinary income on later exercise. (4) Cash-in-lieu of fractional shares triggered a small capital gain or loss in the reorganization year. (5) ex-Xilinx ESPP participants moved to the AMD ESPP under §423 with a separate offering-period and lookback structure. Most filing errors involve the ratio-converted basis carryforward and the ISO-versus-NSO recharacterization on post-merger exercises.

FTB issues a Notice of Proposed Assessment (NPA) under R&TC §19031 when an audit, an IRS-conformity adjustment under R&TC §18622, or a non-filer assessment under R&TC §19087 produces a proposed deficiency. You have 60 days from the NPA date to file a written protest under R&TC §19041 with the FTB Protest Section. The protest preserves your administrative appeal rights and stops the NPA from becoming a Notice of Action that ripens into collection. After protest, FTB issues a Notice of Action, and you then have 30 days under R&TC §19324 to file a petition with the California Office of Tax Appeals (OTA) in Sacramento. Tax Court-style refund litigation in California Superior Court under R&TC §19382 (pay-first / refund-suit) is the alternative path. A late protest forecloses administrative appeal — only the refund-suit path remains. LLCs face the additional §17942 annual $800 plus tiered fee, and the §17941 nexus questions on California-source income trigger their own NPA exposure for out-of-state members.

Most tax-resolution cases at this firm are flat-fee priced after a free 30-minute consultation. Typical Sunnyvale-case ranges from prior engagements: a streamlined Installment Agreement for an under-$50,000 RSU under-withholding balance runs in the $2,500–$3,500 range; a non-streamlined IA with Form 433-F or 433-A on a six-figure liability runs $4,500–$7,500; an Offer in Compromise with full §433 financial documentation runs $5,500–$9,500 federal plus a separate California §19443 fee; an IRS or FTB residency audit defense from initial document request through Office of Appeals or OTA runs $12,000–$35,000+ depending on the year count and document volume; FBAR Streamlined Domestic with five years of FBARs and three years of 1040X plus the §6038D Form 8938 piece runs $7,500–$15,000; a U.S. Tax Court petition through the IRS Office of Appeals docket-call resolution runs $9,500–$25,000. Hourly engagements run $400–$650 per attorney hour. The free consultation produces a written engagement letter with a flat fee or hourly cap before any work begins.

Federal IRS collection authority expires ten years from the assessment date under IRC §6502 (the Collection Statute Expiration Date, or CSED). The California FTB collection statute under R&TC §19255 is twenty years from assessment — twice the federal CSED. Practical effect: an IRS deficiency from a 2014 audit assessed in 2017 expires at IRS in 2027 but at FTB in 2037. Tolling events extend both — a federal §6320/§6330 Collection Due Process hearing, an IRS bankruptcy filing, a §7122 Offer in Compromise pending, or a §6159 IA pending all toll federal CSED; pending OTA appeals and FTB-approved IAs toll state CSED. Sunnyvale taxpayers carrying older balances often see the federal exposure naturally extinguish years before California will release — and FTB collection (bank levies under R&TC §18670 and wage garnishments at the §706.050 maximum) is independent of the now-expired federal lien.