Understanding Stock Offset on Paystub for RSU Income

The "stock offset" on your wife's paystub is actually accounting for the fact that RSUs have already been delivered to her as shares. When RSUs vest, the company reports the full value as income (that's part of her gross income), but they don't need to give her that money in cash since she already received it as stock. The "stock offset" is basically saying "we already paid you this amount in the form of shares." Here's what's happening: When RSUs vest, the company has to withhold taxes just like regular income. So they typically sell some shares to cover taxes (called "sell to cover") and then deliver the remaining shares to your wife. The full value of the vested RSUs is included in her gross income, but since she already received the value via shares, they deduct that amount (minus what they sold for taxes) as "stock offset" so they don't pay her twice. This is why her net pay seems lower than expected relative to gross pay - part of her gross pay wasn't intended to be delivered as cash since it was already delivered as stock.

I had this exact same confusion last year when my company started giving me RSUs! I found this amazing tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that helped me understand all these weird paycheck deductions. You literally just upload your paystub and W2, and it explains everything line-by-line in plain English. For my situation, it confirmed that the "stock offset" was exactly what the first commenter described - it's not actually a deduction but just an accounting entry to avoid double-paying me. The tool even calculated how much of my compensation was coming from equity vs base salary and helped me understand the tax implications. Saved me hours of confused Googling!

I was really skeptical about using taxr.ai when I first saw it mentioned here, but after struggling with my own RSU confusion for weeks, I finally gave it a try. Wow, what a difference! It actually showed me that I was misunderstanding how my company was calculating withholding on my RSUs, which explained why I kept getting surprised by tax bills. The breakdown it gave me for "stock offset" matched exactly what others explained here - it's just an accounting entry to balance the books since I already received the value as shares. But the tool went deeper and showed me how each RSU vest was being taxed and what percentage was being withheld. Turns out my company was only withholding at the minimum rate, which wasn't enough for my tax bracket. Now I'm setting aside extra money with each vest to avoid surprises next April.

If you're still confused about your wife's RSU situation, you might want to try calling the IRS directly to get clarification. I know that sounds painful (because it usually is), but I found this service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) that gets you through to an actual human at the IRS without the normal hold times. They have a video showing how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I used it last year when I was completely confused about how my stock options were being reported on my W2 vs my paystubs. Got connected to an IRS agent in about 15 minutes who actually walked me through how to properly report everything. Much better than the 3+ hour holds I used to experience when calling them directly.

I was totally convinced that Claimyr was BS and just another way to scam desperate taxpayers. I mean, who could possibly solve the IRS hold time nightmare? But after ranting about it here, I was in such a bind with my RSU tax questions that I finally tried it out of desperation. I'm actually shocked to say it worked exactly as advertised. Got a call back in about 20 minutes and the agent I spoke with was surprisingly knowledgeable about equity compensation. She confirmed that my "stock offset" line was exactly what others here described - just an accounting mechanism to balance that I'd already received shares as compensation. She even explained why the numbers on my paystub and my actual stock account didn't match perfectly (withholding calculations). For anyone struggling with RSU questions, definitely worth talking to an actual IRS person rather than just guessing or relying on internet advice (including mine!).

One thing to check: make sure the "stock offset" amount is slightly LESS than the total RSU value on your wife's paystubs. The difference should roughly equal the taxes that were withheld when the RSUs vested. For example, if she had $10,000 worth of RSUs vest, and they withheld approximately $3,000 for taxes, the "stock offset" should be around $7,000. This would indicate they're accounting correctly - she got $10,000 in gross income from RSUs, $3,000 was withheld for taxes, and the remaining $7,000 worth of shares were deposited to her account. If the numbers don't line up this way, there might be a more complex situation happening with her equity compensation.

Just a heads up that different payroll systems display RSU info differently. My company (Big Tech) shows the gross RSU value, taxes withheld, and net value all clearly separated, while my husband's company uses this confusing "stock offset" term just like your wife's does. My tax software (TurboTax Premier) actually has a specific section for RSU income that helped us make sense of all this. It walks you through entering the W2 info correctly and helps verify that the RSU income is properly accounted for. Might be worth using if you're not already.