The small privately owned company I work for is buying out the employee owners at the end of the year. As part of this they offer to accelerate vesting of my RSUs. So instead of getting them over 5 years, they would all vest on January 1st and the company would buy them back, not with cash but giving me 5 (or possibly 10) year note.

Usually when RSUs vest they withhold estimated taxes and the value shows on W2 as non cash compensation.

The problem is that I assume accelerating them would make the whole amount land in one year and it is approximately $150,000. I don’t earn enough to make it feasible to withhold $30k+ in taxes.

Is there any alternative way they could structure this so it could be spread over the term of the note? Like an installment sale, but for the award