Meet VestLedger — RSU, ESPP & ISO vests, withholding gap, offline

Finance

VestLedger

RSU, ESPP & ISO vests, withholding gap, offline

What VestLedger does

Your equity comp is worth a fortune on paper and a minefield at tax time. VestLedger is the offline ledger that turns RSUs, ESPP purchases, and ISO grants into numbers you actually understand — no spreadsheet, no advisor, no login.

Most RSU vests are withheld at a flat 22% federal supplemental rate. If you're in the 32% or 35% bracket, that's a 10-13 point shortfall on every single vest — a quiet underpayment that turns into a penalty and a surprise balance due. VestLedger asks for your bracket once, then shows the exact dollar gap between what your employer held back and what you'll really owe, vest by vest, so you can top up an estimated payment in the same quarter instead of scrambling in April.

Then there's the cost-basis trap. When you sell vested shares, your broker frequently reports a $0 (or blank) cost basis on the 1099-B, because the income was already taxed on your W-2. Report that figure as-is and you pay tax twice on the same money — and if your Form 8949 doesn't match the broker filing, the IRS matching system can mail you a CP2000 notice proposing extra tax you don't owe. VestLedger computes your true adjusted basis from the fair market value at vest, shows the correction to enter on Form 8949, and keeps a clean record you can hand to anyone.

Everything runs on a vesting calendar you set up in minutes. Add a grant, set the schedule (cliff, monthly, quarterly), and watch every future vest, share count, and estimated value populate automatically. A single-stock concentration meter warns you when too much of your net worth is riding on one employer's ticker — the most common and most overlooked equity-comp risk.

ESPP gets its own treatment too. Track your purchase discount, hold period, and whether a sale would be a qualifying or disqualifying disposition — the difference that decides how much of your gain is taxed as ordinary income versus long-term capital gains. ISO grants are tracked alongside, so your whole equity picture lives in one ledger instead of three brokerage logins and a spreadsheet that goes stale every quarter.

VestLedger is built for the engineer, PM, designer, or operator whose biggest comp line is equity they were never taught to manage. It's deliberately offline: your salary, grants, and bracket are some of the most sensitive numbers you own, so they never touch a server. There's no account to create and nothing to subscribe to. Open it the day a grant lands, open it again before you file, and the math is always waiting — current, private, and yours.

• Vesting calendar for RSUs, ESPP, and ISOs with auto-projected dates and values • 22%-vs-marginal withholding gap calculator with per-vest set-aside dollars • 1099-B cost-basis corrector that prevents the double-tax and CP2000 surprise • Adjusted-basis figures formatted for Form 8949 entry • Single-stock concentration meter for employer-ticker risk • ESPP discount and qualifying-vs-disqualifying disposition tracking • Fully offline, no account, no subscription, encrypted on-device

A look inside

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What's inside

• Vesting Calendar — Add each grant once with its schedule (cliff, monthly, quarterly) and VestLedger projects every future vest date, share count, and estimated value into a scrollable timeline.
• Withholding Gap Calculator — Captures your marginal bracket once, then for each RSU vest computes the dollar gap between the flat 22% supplemental withholding and your real liability, with a same-quarter set-aside amount.
• Cost-Basis Corrector — Takes the FMV at vest and the broker's $0/blank 1099-B figure and outputs your true adjusted cost basis plus the exact Form 8949 correction to avoid double tax and CP2000 notices.
• Concentration Meter — Tracks how much of your tracked net worth sits in a single employer ticker and flags over-concentration with a clear risk gauge.

Why we built it

Equity comp creates two acute, money-losing surprises: a flat 22% RSU withholding that under-pays anyone above the 24% bracket, and broker 1099-Bs that report a $0 cost basis — causing double taxation and CP2000 notices. There's no simple, private tool to see either before April.

What makes it different

Unlike brokerage dashboards (E*TRADE, Fidelity, Schwab) that show share counts but never the withholding gap or the basis correction, VestLedger does the equity-comp tax math itself and stays offline. Versus our own catalog: chainwallet is crypto wallets, nestegg is savings goals, and borderpay is cross-border remitta…

Who it's for

Freelancers, contractors, and small-business owners who want their numbers right at tax time without renting a SaaS to do it.

In one line: RSU, ESPP & ISO vests, withholding gap, offline

Try it

See the RSU, ESPP & ISO vests, withholding gap, offline for the full feature list, the info table, and support links.

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