The Budget 2021 announcements were being met with some trepidation given rumours of potential changes to tax rates and allowances, and suggestions from the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) as part of their Capital Gains Tax review that tax advantaged schemes might be abolished as part of a wider move to increase tax revenues.

As matters turned out, there was little change affecting employee share schemes. One encouraging announcement was confirmation of a Call for Evidence on EMI (Enterprise Management Incentives)  – see EMI Consultation for more – in order to “ensure that it provides support for high growth companies to recruit and retain the best talent so they can scale up effectively and examine whether more companies should be able to access the scheme”.

The Government also announced a change in practice for this year. The tax consultations and calls for evidence that would usually be published on Budget Day (as the Call for Evidence on EMI was) have instead been moved back to 23rd March 2021, informally dubbed “Tax Day”. It is not confirmed at present which consultations will feature on the 23rd.

For the documents published on Budget Day and more information, see the Gov.uk page available here.