Thu 13th March 2008
Alastair Darling announced that, from 6th April 2008, the upper limit on the value of shares that can be offered under an EMI scheme...
Fri 29th February 2008
Nearly 80 per cent. of employers offering employee share options under the Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) say that the scheme...
Fri 25th January 2008
Alastair Darling's new CGT rules offer some crumbs to small business owners but have little effect on employee share schemes.
Fri 11th January 2008
HBOS has announced a payout of approximately £12m to its workforce of almost 14,000 staff following the maturity this week of its...
Wed 9th January 2008
Regulations coming into force in April will allow more companies to qualify as "small", and thus escape the requirement to expense...
Tue 8th January 2008
Leading City firm Close Brothers is suffering defections by senior staff as rumours grow of an imminent takeover bid. Five member...
Mon 10th December 2007
In recent years the ABI have chosen the month of December to issue revisions to their guidelines for executive remuneration.
Wed 28th November 2007
A big majority of non-executive directors at unlisted companies think they should receive shares or options as part of their pay,...
Thu 8th November 2007
The Employee Share Ownership Centre and Clifford Chance are leading calls for a change in the tax rules that apply to share schemes...
Fri 19th October 2007
In the pre-Budget statement on October 9th 2007, the Chancellor announced that the previous capital gains tax regime would be abolished...
Sat 15th September 2007
The Treasury has raised the bonus rates on Save As You Earn (SAYE) share option schemes. This reflects a general rise in interest...
Fri 15th June 2007
We understand from HM REvenue & Customs that, within the next two years, they will require most employee share scheme returns...
Fri 15th June 2007
We understand from HM REvenue & Customs that, within the next two years, they will require most employee share scheme returns...
Wed 9th January 2008
Regulations coming into force in April will allow more companies to qualify as "small", and thus escape the requirement to expense their share schemes to profit and loss account.
Normal accounting rules require that companies report a notional charge against profits in relation to the value of their share based employee incentives. This has never made any sense, since employee share incentives are a cost to shareholders, not to companies. However the good news for companies qualifying as "small" is that, if they choose to adopt the accounting standard known as FRSSE (Financial Reporting Standard for Smaller Entities) they do not have to report an expense for their employee share schemes.
From 6th April 2008, a company can qualify as "small" if it satisfies at least two of the following criteria: turnover of less than £6.5 million (up from £5.6 million); assets of less than £3.26 million (up from £2.8 million) and no more than 50 employees. These changes should allow a significantly larger number of companies to avoid the unecessary and burdensome accounting standards in relation to employee share incentives.
Contact us for free advice on the implications of this change for your company.