She made $400K a year at Meta. Her RSUs were underwater. Here's what changed.

The Situation

Imani is a Senior Software Engineer at Meta, mid-30s, Atlanta-based. She was granted RSUs back in 2019 and 2020, when Meta's stock sat in the $200–$280 range. Over the next few years, she watched those shares vest steadily — and she held most of them. She believed in the company. She'd seen colleagues sell early and regret it when the stock ran higher. She figured she'd do the same: hold, let it appreciate, sell strategically at some point.

Then 2022 happened. Meta dropped from its peak to around $90. The shares she'd been holding — granted at $240, vested at $250, still sitting in her account — were now worth less than $100. By 2024 and 2025, the stock had recovered significantly, but Imani's situation was more complicated than it looked. She had multiple tranches of stock: some purchased or vested at high prices, some vested more recently at lower ones. She was still receiving new grants, still vesting, still holding. But the tax story was becoming harder to untangle.

She came to Alphanso with a simple question: "Should I sell, and if so — which shares?"

The Gap We Found

Imani had a CPA who filed her taxes accurately every year. She had a brokerage account she managed herself, making sell decisions based on gut and general advice she'd picked up from her network. What no one had done was look at the full picture at once — the mix of high-cost-basis lots sitting at a loss, the new vests coming in, and the charitable giving she was already doing separately out of cash.

Nobody had told her she was holding nearly $180,000 in shares with an embedded loss — shares purchased or vested at prices well above current market value — that she could harvest today. And nobody had connected that to her plan to give $25,000 to her church and a scholarship fund this year.

What We Did

Tax-loss harvesting on the underwater lots. Imani held multiple lots of Meta stock from 2021 and 2022 vests that had cost bases significantly above the current price. We identified $180,000 in shares with embedded losses, then sold them strategically — realizing roughly $68,000 in capital losses. Those losses now offset gains elsewhere in her portfolio, reducing her tax bill meaningfully for the year.

Immediately reinvesting through direct indexing. To avoid a wash sale and maintain her exposure to the tech sector, we moved the proceeds into a direct index portfolio — a separately managed account that owns the individual stocks underlying an index, rather than a fund. This kept her invested in the same economic exposure while resetting her cost basis and preserving the tax loss.

Routing her charitable donations through a donor-advised fund (DAF) using her highest-basis shares. Rather than donating cash, we transferred $25,000 worth of her highest-cost-basis Meta shares directly into a DAF. She got the full fair market value as a charitable deduction, avoided paying capital gains on those appreciated shares, and her church and scholarship fund received the same amount. The cash she would have donated stayed in her account.

Specific lot identification going forward. We set up a clear framework for which lots to sell first — lowest-basis shares for long-term holds, highest-basis shares for charitable giving, and a disciplined approach to new vests.

[CHART: before/after — tax outcome with vs. without the integrated plan]

The Result

• $68,000 in realized capital losses harvested and available to offset future gains
• $65,000 in net tax savings across this tax year (combining the loss harvesting and charitable strategy)
• Full market exposure maintained — no gap in her tech portfolio despite selling underwater lots
• $25,000 in charitable donations delivered tax-efficiently with no cash out of pocket

[CHART: savings breakdown — where the $65,000 came from]

Why This Worked

The savings didn't come from a single clever idea. They came from seeing Imani's situation as one connected problem — her investment accounts, her tax picture, and her charitable intentions — instead of three separate decisions. Her CPA would have filed the losses correctly if she'd sold. Her brokerage would have executed whatever trades she asked for. But nobody was standing back and saying: here's how to connect all three at once, and here's the order that makes it add up to $65,000.

That's what a fiduciary, flat-fee advisor does. Not just one job - the whole picture.

If this sounds familiar, we'd love to walk through your situation. Request a callback.

This case study is a composite illustration based on real Alphanso client scenarios. Names and identifying details have been changed for privacy. Results are not guaranteed and will vary based on individual circumstances. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Alphanso LLC is a registered investment adviser.