Short Answer
The entire market valuation of your corporate stock shares is taxed as standard salary income at the exact moment your assets vest. The state treats this transition as a regular bonus payment, prompting your employer to automatically liquidate a massive portion of the shares to fund the mandatory payroll deductions.
What Most Expatriates Don't Realize
You watched your corporate RSUs mature and planned to use the full face value of the shares to fund an upcoming house purchase down payment. You didn't know that the system views vesting as an immediate cash-equivalent salary event, triggering an automatic tax seizure of up to 45% of your asset volume right at the broker level. You logged into your portfolio to find your total share count drastically gutted overnight, resulting in a sudden, unrecoverable capital loss of 4,200 € to the tax authorities.
What To Do
- Check the "Lohnsteuerbescheinigung" document provided at year-end to verify that your company correctly logged the share liquidation data on your payroll.
- Track the exact share value on the official vest date to ensure you only pay capital gains tax on any subsequent market growth when you eventually cash out.
- "Der Steuerabzug für meine Mitarbeiteraktien wurde bereits über die Gehaltsabrechnung abgeführt." (The tax deduction for my employee shares has already been remitted via the payroll.) — show this accounting statement to your investment broker to stop double-withholding errors.
The Truth
Vesting feels like a corporate gift, but to the finance office, it is merely a standard wage payment delivered in equity instead of paper notes. The system demands its full cut the absolute second you acquire legal ownership of that asset value.