Carta's 83b Oversight: A Tax Trap for Married Startup Employees (2023)

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It's a joke in reference to the founder of Carta acting bitter upon being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, wherein said founder says that the person who posted about the incident on Twitter should have talked to him first, "founder-to-founder":

https://twitter.com/henrysward/status/1743794996732735679

> Manually file your 83(b). Don't use Carta to do it. Instead, download the form from the IRS website, fill it out, and mail it to the IRS within the strict 30-day deadline. You'll need to get a signature from your spouse, too.

I could be wrong but last time I checked the IRS doesn't provide an official form for this. It does provide a sample election letter[1] but this sample does not include a space for a spouse to sign. You'd need to include an additional line for this yourself in the letter you draft if you wanted it.

Don't forget: if you do this yourself make sure to mail it certified mail with return receipt as physical evidence that it was delivered.

A few months after delivery you can also call any IRS service center and ask them to verify they have the letter on file (these days everything is scanned into the system so any IRS person can find it vs. having to call the center that received it).

[1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-12-29.pdf