If my RSUs are set to be sell-to-cover, are the ones sold the ones of the current grant or the oldest shares I have?

Question

Do RSU sell to cover come out of the oldest shares you own like traditional stock sales?
Say I buy 100 shares of my company Foo, Inc. as of Jan 1, 2020.  If on Jan 1, 2021 I could sell and pay long term capital gains bracket for all those shares.
Instead, if on December 1st 2020 I'm granted 100 new shares, with sell-to-cover (say 40 shares get sold to cover the taxes), will the resulting tax if I sell the remaining shares on Jan 1, 2021 be:

(100 * Price * long term capital gains %) + (60 * Price * Short term capital gains %)
(60 * Price * long term capital gains %) + (100 * Price * Short term capital gains %)

D Stanley · Answer

Every time I've had taxes withheld from RSUs, the "shares" were taken out of that grant automatically. I don't know if there's even a way for the grantor to look to see if you already own shares to sell. So the 100 shares you already own would be subject to long-term gains and the net shares you were awarded would be subject to short-term gains.
Also you'd be taxed on the gain, so your formula would be:
  (100 * (Price - cost_basis_1) * long term capital gains %) 
+ (60  * (Price - cost_basis_2) * Short term capital gains %)

where cost_basis_2 is the value of the shares on the award date, which is credited to you (and taxed) as normal income.

If my RSUs are set to be sell-to-cover, are the ones sold the ones of the current grant or the oldest shares I have?

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