What’s New

We have made UI improvements to our Wire Instructions for online wire exercises. The new UI better highlights the amount, timeline, and considerations for completing the transfer. The updates include:

• User and exercise specific details such as grant, company, option holder, date, and amount.
• Clearer instructions for the bank on how to handle intermediary fees with specific SWIFT payment instructions. 
• Approval and reminder emails now show the last day for Carta to receive funds, so the exercise can be complete.

Who this affects

All international users who are exercising options via online wire. 

How it works

The updated Wire Instructions will be available in the same places as before (Tasks view, PDF, Exercise Progress view). You can see the new templates here:

Tasks view

PDF

Exercise Progress view

Email communication

Both Approval and Reminder emails show the date for Carta to receive funds.

Timing

• Available on all online wire exercises starting 11/30/2022

Additional Resources

Support Article: Exercising Via Online Wire

What's new?

Sellers participating in a private market secondary transaction, such as a tender offer, on the CartaX ATS can now view their estimated tax withholdings* during the Order Entry phase. Equipped with estimated tax information, sellers who are US-based employees will be able to make a more informed decision when determining sell preferences and better anticipate their net proceeds.

How does it work?

Issuers sponsoring a tender offer or another structured transaction will provide Carta with their employees’ city, state, and/or federal jurisdictional tax rates. Carta will use the applicable tax rates to calculate their individual estimated tax withholding. 

As sellers select which of their eligible stock holdings to sell during the Order Entry period, the Proceeds Calculator on the right hand side of the screen will automatically update and calculate what their estimated net proceeds may be after fees and taxes*. 

Sellers can then click on “View tax details” (hyperlink within the red box above) to view a breakdown of the estimated tax withholdings by security type and tax jurisdiction.

Enable your employees to understand their estimated tax obligations earlier in a tender offer when placing their sell orders.

The Tax Withholding Estimates during Order Entry will: 

• Enable sellers to see how their security elections during the Order Entry period may impact their estimated tax withholdings, and ultimately, expected net proceeds; and
• Save Issuers time by helping to reduce the amount of questions received from sellers about their potential tax withholding obligations. 

 Reach out to Carta to get the process started

Do you want to run a tender offer or other private secondary transaction with a fully-integrated cap table experience? Reach out to Carta Liquidity’s Corporate Coverage team at company_coverage@cartacapitalmarkets.com to figure out the best path towards liquidity. 

*Note - The estimated tax withholdings is for illustrative purposes only. The withholding amount shown is only an estimate. The actual amount withheld from a seller’s proceeds may differ significantly from the amount shown. Tax withholding is not a final calculation of taxes due. A seller may have a greater or lesser tax obligation than the amount withheld by the Issuer, and the seller is responsible for determining whether and when any additional tax payments are required. 

Disclaimer: Carta, through its wholly owned broker-dealer subsidiary, Carta Capital Markets, LLC, offers a streamlined experience for executing pre-negotiated stock transfers, tender offers, and other secondary liquidity transactions. Carta Capital Markets, LLC is a member of FINRA/SIPC.

What's new?

Issuers running a secondary transaction, such as a tender offer, through Carta Liquidity on the CartaX ATS can now access on demand real-time seller participation data during a live transaction via the Issuer Transaction Dashboard (“Dashboard”). 

How does it work?

Issuers can access their brokerage account online and click on their live transaction, where they will see their Dashboard. The “Participation overview” tab includes three key sections:

• Participation breakdown: The pie chart provides a summary of the transaction’s subscription rate by Relationship type. Issuers can quickly see how close the transaction is to being fully subscribed. Relationship type is determined during the transaction’s setup period.
• Participant engagement: The bar chart details the number of sellers who (a) have been invited to the transaction, (b) viewed the transaction, and (c) decided to participate by tendering shares.
• Relationship summary: The table summarizes the participation level across all Relationship types. Details include the participation rate, shares tendered, and the notional value of tendered shares.

The table and charts on this page will update in real-time during the live transaction. 

The “Transaction overview” tab of the Dashboard will be accessible at the close of the offering period and provides a summary of the transaction, including a breakdown of deposits made into the Issuer’s brokerage account. Issuers will be able to access and download their Trade Confirmation and Transaction Summary reports here as well.  

Save time and gain real-time transaction and participation data on demand with the Issuer Transaction Dashboard

The Issuer Transaction Dashboard will: 

• Give you real-time transaction and participation data on demand during a live transaction;
• Provide you with full oversight and enhance your foresight over the transaction’s results related to filling a buy order; and 
• Make it easier for you to provide your team with updates on a transaction and Relationship type level, preserving the confidentiality of individual seller activity.

Reach out to Carta to get the process started

Do you want to run a tender offer or other private secondary transaction with a fully-integrated cap table experience? Reach out to Carta Liquidity’s Corporate Coverage team at company_coverage@cartacapitalmarkets.com to figure out the best path towards liquidity. 

Disclaimer: Carta, through its wholly owned broker-dealer subsidiary, Carta Capital Markets, LLC, offers a streamlined experience for executing pre-negotiated stock transfers, tender offers, and other secondary liquidity transactions. Carta Capital Markets, LLC is a member of FINRA/SIPC.

What's new

Employees who have access to Carta Tax Advisory through their employer may now choose from up to four different tax advisory session types. This aims to provide transparency and flexibility so you can have the conversation that's right for you. 

Who this affects

US-based employees subscribed to Carta Tax Advisory through their employer

How it works

Scheduling a session

Log in to your  Carta employee account, navigate to the Tax advice tab.

From there, click on "Book a free session" to browse different session types. 

Once you're on the session type selection page, you'll see a brief outline on how to schedule and a selection of three to four different session types. 

Select the session type that's right for you and click "Schedule free session" to book a time with a tax advisor. 

If you're not quite sure where to start, we recommend starting with the "Understand equity basics" session type to learn about your equity and taxes at a high level.

Note: The "Discuss tender offer participation" session type only appears if your company is currently undergoing a tender offer. 

Preparing for a session

Session types: Discuss tender offer participation | Create tax scenarios

Once you've scheduled a time to speak with a tax advisor, you'll be prompted to upload a few documents. Tax advisors will create personalized tax scenarios using this information so you can have the most accurate tax picture. 

If you don't have these documents on hand now, you can skip this step for later. However, you must upload documents at least 24 hours before your session so advisors have enough time to prepare. 

You'll receive a calendar invite with a zoom link to attend your session at your scheduled time. You can also see this information in your tax advice tab in Carta, with the option to reschedule or cancel using the "View details" button. 

Session types: Ask a quick question | Understand equity basics

Once you've scheduled a time to speak with a tax advisor, there's nothing else you need to prepare ahead of your session.

You'll receive a calendar invite with a zoom link to attend your session at your scheduled time. You can also see this information in your tax advice tab in Carta, with the option to reschedule or cancel using the "View details" button. 

What’s new?

We have redesigned the way you review and accept your 409A valuation on Carta. This new design presents you first with a quick summary of the analysis along with a note from your analyst letting you know the next steps in finalizing your fair market value (FMV). Once you have reviewed the report, if you have any questions you can contact our team of valuation experts through the support module in the valuation review portal. Lastly, receive board approval from within or outside of Carta to finalize the current FMV on your account. 

How it Works

Once you receive an email notifying you that your valuation is ready for review, you can follow the link within that email to access the 409A ledger where you are able to review and download your valuation. Alternatively, you can navigate to the page within Carta at Compliance > 409A Valuation.

Review your valuation

From the 409A Ledger, once you select ‘Review 409A report’ you will be directed to the valuation review portal. Here you will find an overview of the analysis performed and the concluded FMV along with a note from your valuation analyst informing you of next steps and noting any details within the report that warrant extra attention. Once you have reviewed the analyst’s note and valuation summary, you can download the full report or access the support module from the valuation review portal to access support articles or get in touch with our team of valuation experts. 

Get board approval

Now that you have reviewed the valuation, the next step is to send it to your board for review. You can do so using the board consent feature within your Carta account to easily track acceptance from each board member within the Carta platform. Once all board members have submitted their board approval through the platform, your valuation will automatically be accepted on Carta. If you got approval outside of Carta, that’s great too, simply select ‘My board has approved’ to accept the valuation to finalize the current FMV in your account. Once finalized, the new FMV will be visible to your option holders on Carta.

What's new

New hire onboarding allows new hires to access their Carta account before they receive and accept their equity grant. By creating a stakeholder record for the employee, employees receive an email to register for a Carta account. This grants them access to Carta Tax Advisory.

If you do not add new hires they will need to wait to accept their equity grant in order to access Carta resources, which can take several months to approve and issue. 

New employees often have questions about their equity as soon as they join a company, Carta Tax Advisory gives them access to dedicated 1:1 support from equity tax experts from day 1 to help them understand their equity packages. 

Who does this affect?

Companies subscribed to Carta Tax Advisory

US-based employees (new hires) at companies subscribed to Carta Tax Advisory

How can I give new hires access to their Carta account?

Important notes before starting: 

1. The new hire onboarding process only applies to companies subscribed to Carta Tax Advisory. 
2. Tax advisory sessions are only available to US citizens or residents
3. Adding an employee into Carta as a stakeholder provides them access to Carta services like Carta Tax Advisory. Ensure you only add employees you intend to issue equity to.

The Stakeholder ledger allows users with Company editor or Legal administrator permissions to view and modify information for a person that holds multiple securities across the company 

Navigate to Stakeholders > All Stakeholders

Under the Manage Stakeholders drop-down, admins can add stakeholders individually or in bulk

Individually add stakeholders

Select “Add stakeholder” in the Manage stakeholders dropdown list

A modal will appear requesting information about the stakeholder

Required fields:

• First name
• Last name
• Relationship (i.e. employee)
• Relationship effective date

• Add and save an address 

  • Country (3 digit) 
  • State (2 digit)

Tax ID, Employee ID, Payroll ID, and other address fields can be input as available, but are not required before equity grant issuance

Bulk add stakeholders

Select Bulk add stakeholders from the Manage stakeholders dropdown

Download the template spreadsheet to import stakeholders’ information, save, and upload the modified file. Carta will run a check on the data entered before saving the changes

Note: Admins should not add new columns or move columns in this sheet. They must use the template as is

Required columns: 

• First name
• Last name
• Relationship (i.e. employee)
• Relationship effective date (MM/DD/YYYY)
• Country (3 digit) 
• State (2 digit)

After the updated xslx sheet is uploaded, click “Submit changes” and a confirmation modal will appear

Confirm to complete stakeholder creation

What’s New

The Payment Status Updates on the Exercising workflow provides users a more accurate reflection of the status of their exercise during the money movement step of the exercise. Error messaging will now provide a single failure message clarifying what caused their exercise to become stuck during the money movement step of the exercise including errors around cancelation requests, bank account removal, and insufficient funds in the bank account.

Who this affects

All users exercising for private companies on Carta.

How it works

Today, users can view the status of their exercises in progress on the Holdings page and with the new Payment Status Update feature, these exercises will now display an ‘Error’ bubble beside the active step when the exercise gets stuck. Clicking the ‘View details’ button will navigate the user to the Exercise tab on the Option grant modal with user instructions to help resolve their stuck exercise. 

On the Exercise tab, error messaging will provide user action to contact their company admin through the Option grant modal’s Report Issue tab, to contact Carta Support through the chat, or update their bank account information on the Payment Information page. 

What’s New

Users that choose to early-exercise will now be able to submit an 83(b) form automatically to the IRS while exercising. Furthermore, users can now update their SSN, digitally sign the 83(b) form, and review personal information during the exercise request. In addition, users now have an improved UI to access the PDF and tracking number of their 83(b) form on the 83(b) Elections tab  on the Option Grant modal.

Who this affects

Any US-based users with early exercisable option grants, and ACH eligible who choose to early-exercise through Carta. 

How it works

83(b) Automated Submission Option During Exercise Request

The 83(b) Automated Submission option will be available during an exercise submission. Users will be able to choose between performing an Automated 83(b) Submission or a Manual 83(b) submission (if the user selects to submit their 83(b) form manually, they still have the option to utilize the automated submission feature through the Option grant modal as long as the current date has not exceeded 25 days from the exercise date).  

	Figure 1: On the Review Tax page, users now are given the option to automatically submit an 83(b) form or manually submit the form; If the user chooses to submit the automated 83(b) form, they can add/update their SSN directly
	Figure 2: Updated Sign and Submit modal which includes an Automated 83(b) Submission Agreement section signed via digital signature.
	Figure 3: Updated Congratulations page stating that the 83(b) form is being sent to the IRS.
	Figure 4: 83(b) elections tab on the Option Grant modal to view the USPS tracking number and the submitted 83(b) form.

Included Personal Information

To submit an automated 83(b) submission, a Social Security Number (SSN) is required by the IRS to properly verify the identity of the user. If the user’s SSN isn’t filled in the Account settings, users have the ability to add and confirm their SSN when selecting their submission method. Otherwise, when users navigate to the Review Exercise page, the automated submission will pull the user’s Name, SSN, and Address directly from the Account settings.

Digital Signature

On the Sign and Submit modal (Figure 2), users agree to automatically submit the 83(b) form by signing the agreement via digital signature. The digital signature is added directly into the PDF of the 83(b) form.

Status of submission 

The 83(b) form PDF and Tracking number will be provided and displayed in the Option grant modal on the 83(b) Elections tab. The user will be able to track and check the status of their 83(b) Automated Submission.

83(b) Manual Submissions

Manual 83(b) Submissions UI has been improved on the 83(b) Elections tab providing users with an 83(b) form to print and sign which is to be mailed manually by the user. To complete their manual submission, users will be required to upload their signed copy of the form in addition to the date that the 83(b) form was sent to the IRS on Carta. Further, users may choose to submit an automated submission on the 83(b) Elections tab.

FAQ

1. Can I still use the previous workflow for 83(b) Submission?

Yes! If you would prefer to file your 83(b) form manually, you still have the ability to do so! During the exercise workflow, you may select “Submit an 83(b) form later” as your submission method, and you’ll have the option to download and print an 83(b) form from the 83(b) Elections tab on the Option grant modal.

2. What happens if my exercise gets stuck or canceled?

If you select automated submission of your 83(b) election, it will be initiated immediately after you finish submitting your exercise.  If your exercise gets canceled, you should consult with your legal and tax advisors on what to do with your filed 83(b) election form.

3. How will I know that the IRS has received my automated submission? Will I be able to closely follow the progress of the 83(b) submission?

You can navigate to the 83(b) elections tab on the Option grant modal to verify the status of the 83(b) form using the tracking number provided by USPS to follow the progression of your 83(b) submission. Status updates are available as soon as the package is delivered to the USPS.

We highly recommend printing and storing the online USPS confirmation as this information is only available for a limited amount of time. 

Additional Resources

• Support Article: 83(b) Form for Early Exercised Option Grants
• Blog: What is Early Exercising?
• Arcade: 83(b) Automated Submission Walkthrough

What’s new?

We have redesigned the 409A Ledger Page where you come to request and review the 409A Valuations of your company and enter the Fair Market Value (FMV) of your company’s options. The goal of this refresh is to help you navigate the valuation process with ease and access resources quickly whenever you need assistance. 

With this updated design you will quickly and easily identify where you are in the valuation process and what to expect next. Carta is here to help you along the way with curated support articles and a variety of options to get in touch with us if you have questions not covered within the articles.

How it Works

Under Compliance > 409A you will find a number of new features designed to help you navigate the Carta Valuation process with confidence.

Valuation Status Tracker

The Valuation Status Tracker at the top of the page clearly indicates where your company is in the valuation request process. Whether you are in the middle of completing your request, if your draft is ready for review or if you are anywhere in between, the tracker will let you know what your next step is as soon as you land on the 409A Ledger page. Also included are tools and support articles to help answer common questions that you may have based on where you are in the valuation process.

Review and accept your valuation

Once you have received your valuation, you can download it for review directly from the Valuation Tracker on the 409A Ledger page. After you have had a chance to review the report and are ready to accept, you will be directed to the final step in The Valuation Tracker, the acceptance workflow. 

Get in touch with our team

Have a question? Navigate to our Support Module on the page and select the contact method that works best for you, our team of experts will follow up with a response typically within 1 business day.

Viewing your 409A Valuations

Now that you have completed the valuation process, your most recent valuation will be displayed at the top of the table at the bottom of the page along with any previous valuations saved to your Carta account. If you have any questions for our Valuation team in between valuations, simply navigate to the new 409A Ledger Page to access our Support model to get in touch with our team of Valuation Experts.

Who This Affects

Users without a verified secondary email address

What’s New

Additional emails are required to assist users with providing a secondary login credential in case access to their primary email address is lost. As part of our efforts to improve our clients' account security, we are updating the process of adding and verifying your additional email address. 

As part of this release, we will be notifying all users without a verified additional email address to add or verify the email they have listed. This subset of users will be receiving an email notification, as well as an outstanding task in their Carta account’s task manager. 

Timing

• This update is available to 25% of randomly selected Carta users
• General availability for all users by the end of Q2