The big story of the year has been the increasing number of companies converting to employee ownership by selling to an employee ownership trust (“EOT”). Here’s a run down of what went down this year in the world of employee share schemes and employee ownership: January: Trust...
A recent case about entrepreneurs’ relief is jammed with tedious legal jargon about equitable remedies and the like. Luckily, most of the salient points in Dieno George v HMRC ([2018] UKFTT 0509 (TC)) have already been covered by a number of the greatest 80s popular...
Mr Hammond’s budget on 29 October didn’t look on the face of it to have very much in the way of excitement for share schemes, but there was certainly food for thought in particular for seekers of Entrepreneurs’ Relief (“ER”). The changes mean that Enterprise...
In businesses the best incentives create behaviours which benefit the company. Would you like to enhance performance, productivity and personnel development whilst by achieving your Company’s strategic plan? Employee ownership across all employees which is implemented correctly and communicated strongly, can really make a difference. We...
What does the Labour Party’s announcement on “inclusive ownership funds” mean for employee ownership? At the moment, there’s not a huge amount of detail about Labour’s recently announced policy for 10% of shares in larger companies to be awarded to employees, with additional employee representation on...
If you’re just starting to think about putting in place a share scheme for employees, such as an Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI), a good starting point is our checklist . We’ve published some more detailed blogs on Step 1 (design questions) and Step 2 (how...
The law may be an ass but when it comes to employee share schemes, there are certain legal requirements that company directors, in particular, need to know about. Probably the biggest practical risk is that the share option arrangements may be questioned at a later...
The First Tier Tribunal has ruled in the Esprit Logistics Management Ltd and others v HMRC [2018] case that director loan accounts written off were taxable as employment income of the directors, and subject to PAYE and NIC, rather than taxed as dividends where a...
Employee ownership, and in particular Enterprise Management Incentive schemes (EMI) are at their most popular level ever. This is according to the latest HMRC statistics published in July. Key stats for EMI schemes: Total EMI schemes increased to 10,350 (up 16% on the previous year); Companies...
On 29 June 2018, the Financial Services and Services Markets Act 2000 (Prospectus and Markets in Financial Instruments) Regulations 2018 No 786 were published. These UK Regulations/Statutory Instruments amend the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (“FSMA 2000”) for the purposes of implementing the new EU...
Today we received an email from HMRC. Specifically, an email agreeing a valuation of a company for an Enterprise Management Incentive ("EMI")scheme. What’s the big deal? For decades, agreeing valuations with HMRC for employee share schemes has been a grind of hand written forms, heaps...
If you’re running an employee share scheme, it’s obvious that it extends to employees. However, is it always obvious who your employees actually are? If you’re using a tax advantaged share scheme, like the Enterprise Management Incentive Scheme (EMI) or Company Share Option Plan (CSOP), you...
If you’re running a share plan for employees, you must submit your annual share scheme return on HMRC’s online system by 6 July 2018. If you don’t, fines will likely apply.HMRC are not known for accepting excuses for late filing. Here are some...
As we approach the end of the tax year, our Operations Team starts to think about the share plan annual returns that we will prepare and submit for our clients. Since April 2014 HMRC has required all reportable share schemes to be registered online under Employment...
The Court of Appeal has recently overturned a decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal on age discrimination regarding an employee share plan. The new decision highlights that it may be appropriate for employers to discriminate based on age, but only in certain circumstances. Some share...
