HMRC have issued a further Bulletin on Employment Related Shares & Securities relating to the tax
treatment of employee share schemes. The Bulletin is concerned with various important aspects of employee
share scheme administration and in particular various changes to registration
and filing coming into force on 6^th April 2014.

ERS service – Registration and self-certification timetable

The new ERS service from HMRC for
registration and self-certification of employee share schemes comes into effect
from 6^th April 2014.  Schemes which
are not duly registered and certified by 6^th July 2015 will be at
risk of losing their tax benefits and year end returns (which will have to be
completed online for period starting on or after 6^th April 2014) which
are not completed by this date being out of time and with penalties arising as
a result.

The bulletin suggests a timetable
for registration of schemes based on the initial letter of the company
concerned but with it being made clear that companies can register at any time
from 6^th April 2014.

PAYE and ERS service – access for agents and within the Company

The Bulletin also provides
details for providing access to the new ERS system for agents of the company
and for people within the company, including the facility for persons to be
given access to certain areas of information only in order to preserve
confidentiality.

EMI notification

The bulletin also covers points
relating to Enterprise Management Incentives, including:

·         from 6^th April 2014, grants of EMI
options must be notified to HMRC online using the ERS service;

·         the EMI scheme must be registered before grants
can be notified;

·         employers will have to confirm that employees
have signed the working time declarations and that the signed declarations are
available for inspection by HMRC, with possible penalties if a declaration is
not held by an employer;

·         specific provision is made for registering
grants to more than 30 employees;

·         following registration of an EMI scheme, that
scheme will be allocated a unique reference number with an end of year return
being required for each EMI that has such a number.  The end of year returns will be available
later this year; and

·         as before, there is a requirement to notify EMI
options within 92 days of grant in order for them to qualify for the EMI tax
reliefs.