Selling your founder shares is a capital gains event, and the details matter a lot. Broadly, your gain is the sale price minus your cost (what you paid, or the value already taxed if the shares came from ESOPs), and it is taxed as long or short term capital gains depending on how long you held. Shares in an unlisted company follow different holding period and rate rules than listed ones, and a secondary can interact with the ESOP perquisite tax you may already have paid. This is exactly the situation to model with a CA before you sign, because the structure and timing can change the number meaningfully.
A curated summary to orient you, not advice. The resources below are the real value.
2 hand-picked resources, 2 India-specific, 2 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it The India-specific piece: perquisite tax at exercise, capital gains at sale, and the startup deferral, with worked examples in rupees.
From ClearTax by ClearTax
Open cleartax.in →Why we picked it The India reference on short vs long term capital gains, holding periods, and rates for equity, funds, and property, so you know the tax before you sell.
From ClearTax by ClearTax
Open cleartax.in →
