Kite CEO Arie Belldegrun fills a prescription for tax bite

Death and taxes may both be unavoidable, but Kite Pharma ($KITE) CEO Arie Belldegrun at least knows how to limit the pain on part of that equation. Ahead of Kite's hot IPO, Belldegrun decided to trigger an early exercise on 2.18 million options on stock at $1.35, reports Bloomberg. Most of that was done just ahead of the IPO. His move makes it possible for him to pay capital gains tax on future appreciation--rather than income tax--on the considerable profit. And as anyone who makes a considerable amount of money knows, the capital gains tax rate is 20% compared with a top income tax rate of 39.5%. By Bloomberg's calculations, Belldegrun's options in fiscal 2014 were worth $95 million. Story