How to get your 3921- Exercise of ISOs

What is a 3921?

A tax form that details your Incentive Stock Option exercises. It has three KEY bits of information that we need to give you financial planning advice and prepare your tax return: the exercise price, the FMV, and the number of shares.

The most important item on the 3921 is the Fair Market Value per share on the exercise date. This information is CRUCIAL for your tax plan and eventually will impact the amount of Alternative Minimum Tax you will pay.

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How to get Form 3921?

In our experience, the best place to get your 3921 is directly from your employer.

  1. Your employer. The IRS requires that your employer complete form 3921 for every employee who exercises ISOs that year. They are required to furnish a copy to you, the employee, and the IRS. Reach out to your equity, accounting, or finance team for your 3921. They should be able to email it to you. Copy and paste this request: I exercised ISOs during the tax year and my accountant is requesting Form 3921. Can you please provide this document?

  2. Your custodian. Occasionally, your employer will make the 3921 available to you via your custodian such as E*Trade, Morgan Stanley/Shareworks, or Fidelity. It’s usually found in the “Tax Documents” or “Documents” section.

  3. Pull it from Carta. If your company uses Carta, navigate to Portfolio > Documents to download the PDF. Please note that NOT every company chooses to use the feature so if don’t see this option, ask your employer.

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