Introduction

Historically, the development and use of share schemes can be linked to companies seeking to use the rules to reward employees and directors in a way that did not, typically, attract income tax and national insurance contributions. However, as with all such schemes, the legislation has developed in order to ensure that payments by way of salary or bonus could not be simply recategorised in this way and paid out with lower (or even no) tax due.

The share schemes legislation sets out a wide range of scenarios where income tax and, potentially, national insurance are due on transactions and events that involve shares and securities, particularly those where the recipients have an employment relationship with the company.

However, share schemes are still a popular method of incentivising employees and there are a number of specific plans set out by tax legislation for companies to use. For commentary on why share schemes are popular methods of retaining staff, see the Why use a share scheme? guidance note.

From 6 April 2014, share schemes, including share