Employee Share Schemes

Employee Share Schemes seek to incentivise and motivate employees as well as providing a useful tool to tie-in employees for a period of time. Some plans/schemes are discretionary and can be made available to selected employees and if approved by HM Revenue and Customs can offer favourable tax treatment to both the employer and the employee.

Unapproved plans/schemes are totally legitimate plans but are not approved by HMRC and do not provide any favourable tax treatment. They are often used where a company does not meet the criteria for an approved plan or where a company wishes to grant options exceeding those allowed by approved schemes in which case unapproved schemes can run alongside in parallel with the approved scheme.