On Tuesday, 21 July 2020, the Government announced further good news for companies operating enterprise management incentive (EMI) share option schemes that will allow them to continue to grant new options to individuals who: have been furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), or have taken unpaid leave, or have had their working hours … Continue Reading
Late on Friday, 26 June 2020, with little fanfare, the Chancellor of the Exchequer tabled a new clause for inclusion in the Finance Bill 2020 (FB 2020) during its Report stage in the House of Commons. It addresses a key concern around furloughed employees who hold enterprise management incentive (EMI) options (as discussed previously on … Continue Reading
Since 6 April 2018 companies have been unable to grant new EMI options, because the existing EU state aid approval expired without fresh approval having been received. So there has been much excitement today at the news that the EU Commission has now given state aid approval, and companies can now grant new EMI options. … Continue Reading
Participants in Save as Your Earn (SAYE) schemes are currently able to take a “payment holiday” of up to six months. This helps participants keep their SAYE options by allowing them to take a break from making monthly payments, for example while they are on maternity leave. In the Autumn Budget the government announced the … Continue Reading
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to resolve a split between the Seventh and Eighth Circuits related to a federal program that is a well-kept secret. Nothing as intriguing as Russian spies or hacked emails… but, I think, interesting nonetheless. Of course, you have heard about the Social Security system. And you probably know … Continue Reading
The collapse of Carillion has raised many issues relating to public procurement, the actions of the board and the role of the auditors. But a press release by the Institute of Directors suggesting that in 2016 Carillion relaxed the clawback conditions that applied to bonuses has raised questions over remuneration governance. The change seems to … Continue Reading
U.S. Internal Revenue Code §409A provides a wide range of very restrictive rules pertaining to “nonqualified” deferred compensation plans and many other types of compensation arrangements that may defer compensation. On June 22, 2016, the Internal Revenue Service issued proposed changes to the regulations under IRC §409A. This post reviews a few highlights of the proposal … Continue Reading
U.S. Internal Revenue Code §457(f) addresses federal income taxation of certain types of “nonqualified” deferred compensation plans and arrangements of entities that are either state and local governments or tax-exempt organizations (under IRC §501(c)). Most of those deferred compensation arrangements also must comply with IRC §409A to avoid tax penalties. For state and local governments … Continue Reading
The tax consequences in Germany of a management participation plan are not clear. An employee holding an interest in their employer company may either be taxed on the basis of receiving income from their employment or from a capital asset. This results in different tax treatment. Last year the Fiscal Court of Cologne considered a case … Continue Reading
The IRS recently published an updated Equity (Stock) – Based Compensation Audit Techniques Guide (the “ATG”). The August 2015 ATG has been substantially expanded compared to the prior Stock Based Compensation Audit Techniques Guide (the “prior ATG”). The ATG generally remains organized in the same fashion as the prior ATG. It begins by defining Equity-Based … Continue Reading
On 7 July we reported that HMRC’s online filing system for employment related shares was down – worrying, given the 6 July filing deadline. Things finally seem to be returning to normal but some issues are still being reported as it appears HMRC are limiting the number of concurrent users of the system so that error … Continue Reading
Hot off the press, an announcement from HMRC Share Schemes: “ERS Online service We are aware of some technical issues that are being investigated as a matter of urgency, and apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers. As customers will be unable to file their annual return by the 6 July 2015 deadline we will … Continue Reading
Following on from our earlier blog post predicting that companies might have issues when using the new online service for registering employee share plans with HMRC, it appears that problems are indeed emerging. Despite the looming deadline of 6 July, we hear anecdotal reports that so far only about 25% of plans have been registered. In … Continue Reading
The Fiscal Court of Cologne has ruled that, for German tax purposes, Restricted Stock Units (“RSU’s”) should be regarded as compensation which is intended to be an incentive for the future work performance of the employee. This compensation may therefore be subject to tax in Germany even if the employee has ceased to be resident … Continue Reading
The Financial Reporting Council has published a consultation on amendments to accounting standard FRS102, which deals with share-based payments (such as options) with a cash alternative. The amendments are aimed at aligning FRS102, which tends to be used by smaller companies, with the international accounting standards used by listed companies. The closing date for responses … Continue Reading
In several posts last year, we charted the development of the new HMRC rules for the online registering, self-certifying and making of annual returns for share plans, and indeed all arrangements under which employees receive shares. Now the dust has settled, the teething troubles have been ironed out and the templates for the new “end-of-year” returns … Continue Reading
The UK tax treatment of employment related securities depends on a range of factors including the date of grant, the nature of the security and also the residence and domicile status of the employee. For employees coming to the UK who are not UK resident at the time of grant, the tax treatment will depend … Continue Reading
The Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) released updates to its guidelines that govern its shareholder recommendations on a number of corporate governance matters. Significantly, ISS has adopted a new scorecard for evaluating whether ISS will recommend approving a company’s compensation plan. The Equity Plan Scorecard, or EPSC, considers a range of factors that fall into three … Continue Reading
For employees that move from country to country, the taxation of benefits in the form of shares is different from the way in which other types of remuneration are taxed in the UK. This can be a pain to administer and result in significant tax advantages to some employees, whilst others are worse off. The … Continue Reading
Glass Lewis recently released updates to its policies that govern recommendations to shareholders on a number of corporate governance matters. As relates specifically to compensation, such updates include: In assessing pay-for-performance, compensation plans that otherwise receive an unsatisfactory rating from Glass Lewis’ qualitative evaluation model may nevertheless receive a recommendation of approval from Glass Lewis … Continue Reading
The Australian Securities & Investments Commission’s much anticipated revised class order relief and policy in relation to employee incentive schemes was released on 31 October 2014. This has been achieved by ASIC replacing existing CO 03/184 with two new class orders CO 14/1000 for listed bodies and CO 14/1001 for unlisted bodies. ASIC has also published … Continue Reading
On 14 October 2014, the Australian government introduced significant changes to the employee share scheme rules to apply to shares or options provided from July 2015. The existing tax rules introduced in 2009 by the former Labor government have been harshly criticised as inhibiting the ability to attract and retain employees by offering ownership interests … Continue Reading
As the dust settles on the eagerly awaited HMRC v Martin decision (see our previous blog post), thoughts are inevitably turning to how that decision impacts on an employer’s approach to clawback payments, particularly in the world of variable remuneration. Whilst the judge in the Martin decision was clear that his conclusion turned on the … Continue Reading
On Wednesday afternoon we were treated to the latest and, for this year at least, final instalment in the saga of Sports Direct’s remuneration policy, as it played out at the AGM. Contrary to at least one press article, there were no fireworks but the results certainly are worth looking at. The important votes from … Continue Reading
