It’s tax week at Signed! We have a slew of new features around taxes, QSBS, and other *insanely exciting topics* this week! Don’t act like you aren’t incredibly looking forward to improving your tax strategy, you little freak.
The first ship comes today: the QSBS Clock.
QSBS
QSBS isn’t just a weird BS acronym: it’s one of the single most-lucrative tax advantages you can take advantage of. Qualified Small Business Stock has been around for decades, letting owners of early-stage company stock avoid paying tax on gains. Your first $10M-$15M of gains *per company* are tax-free (or 10x your basis, whichever is larger). It’s a pretty insane giveaway (which is the point: it encourages investment into early-stage, innovative companies).
There are a number of caveats: companies must be under an asset number to qualify, your state — like California — might still tax your proceeds, the year you invest can play a big role due to last year’s changes in the OBBBA, you must hold it for a certain time period, and you must hold converted stock instead of a SAFE or similar. (Boy, this is a headache! It’s almost like a certain angel investor platform should launch a comprehensive tool to help with this. Check back tomorrow on that )
QSBS Clock
Signed has had a simple QSBS flag for months, but we’re digging much deeper into your holdings now with our new QSBS Clock. You’ll see it in your Reporting page.
Think of this as a high-level dashboard into companies that you’ve marked as being QSBS-qualifying. We handle all of the myriad scheduling differences between Classic QSBS™ and the more recent OBBBA QSBS from 2025 (and we’ll update these rules accordingly as they start changing in 2027 to adjust with inflation). We also handle all of this across multiple lots: if you have multiple checks into a given company, we’ll track your exposure separately for each lot.
The primary question this screen answers is *which company stock should I continue to hold longer?* in order to leverage tax treatment. This might just be trivia that could be interesting to your portfolio, but if you’re considering taking a tender offer, selling part of your holdings in a secondary sale, or there’s an upcoming exit on the horizon, this is a fantastic sanity check (and a good idea of what your tax exposure might be). Determining *when* to exit a position can potentially save you thousands or millions.
You can get started by editing a holding on a company page. We’ll also give you the full clock for that position on the sidebar:
Helpful for employees, too
This benefit isn’t just helpful for investors; depending on how you acquired your shares, your equity plan from your employer might qualify under QSBS as well. It’s another reason why tracking your sweat equity like any other investment really matters: don’t leave money on the table.
Thinking about this as an employee can help you understand when it makes sense to exercise your options (if you didn’t already 83(b) on an early exercise of your options). That the clock only starts on exercise, not grant, has a huge impact on your whole schedule. You can also potentially roll your QSBS proceeds into a new QSBS position if you’re looking at an early exit as well (through Section 1045). But first: you have to track all this to understand how it impacts you.
MCP access
Of course, this is all live in our new MCP Server now as well. Point your LLM at mcp.signed.com, sign in, and ask it questions like: “which positions can I sell today without giving up a QSBS exclusion?”
Digest access
This is wired into our new Portfolio Digest emails as well. Since so much of QSBS treatment surrounds *when* you do certain actions, we’ll surface any upcoming QSBS milestones coming up in the next quarter in your weekly email as well.
The Clock
Marking a position as QSBS-qualifying is free for everyone, but the QSBS Clock and its reporting tools are available on the paid Investor plan.
Happy QSBS’in!