For most Amazon employees, sell-at-vest is the most tax-efficient default — vested shares are already taxed as ordinary income, and holding only adds concentrated-stock risk. Holding can make sense if it's part of a deliberate plan and you've capped your overall AMZN exposure. A specialist will model both paths against your bracket and goals before recommending a default.

Vested RSUs are taxed as ordinary income at the fair market value on the vest date. If you continue to hold the shares, future appreciation is taxed at capital gains rates — short-term if sold within a year of vesting, long-term thereafter. Senior employees often face under-withholding because Amazon's default supplemental withholding rate may not match your real marginal rate.

Amazon's standard new-hire RSU grant vests 5% in year one, 15% in year two, then 40% in years three and four (typically paid semi-annually). Sign-on bonuses are front-loaded to bridge the early years when stock vesting is small. Refreshers granted later vest on their own four-year clocks layered on top, which is why Amazon comp planning quickly becomes multi-dimensional.

Unvested RSUs are forfeited at separation — there's no "vest acceleration" by default. Timing your departure around vest dates and any retention or refresher awards can preserve significant value. An advisor can map this for you in advance so you're not making the call under pressure.

Yes — Amazon's 401(k) plan permits after-tax contributions and in-plan Roth conversions, which together enable the Mega Backdoor Roth strategy. For high earners, this can shelter tens of thousands of additional dollars per year in tax-advantaged growth on top of the standard $23,000 elective deferral. It's one of the highest-leverage moves an Amazon employee can make and one of the most commonly missed.

Concentration is reduced through a deliberate, multi-year plan: setting a maximum AMZN allocation, harvesting tax losses to offset diversification gains, and using vehicles like direct indexing or exchange funds when concentration is large. The wrong move is selling all at once and triggering an unnecessary tax event — the right move is staging it.

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