Employment Related Securities Bulletin 38 (March 2021)
Find out about continued impact of coronavirus on employee share schemes, Enterprise Management Incentive, Save as you Earn extended holiday, Shares Assets Valuation mailbox and Non Statutory Clearance process.
Employment related securities bulletins give information and updates on developments relating to employment related securities (ERS), including the tax-advantaged employee share schemes.
HMRC publishes ERS bulletins when:
- articles or updates are available
- HMRC has any item to bring to your attention quickly
Any reference to Income Tax (Earnings & Pensions) Act 2003 (ITEPA) is to the current legislation as amended.
Contacting HMRC for advice
Make sure you include the relevant share scheme reference number if you have one, when you contact us about share schemes. If you have not provided the share scheme reference HMRC may not be able to respond to or answer your query.
You can find more information on how to identify your share scheme reference number in ERS Bulletin 25.
Continuing review during the coronavirus pandemic
HMRC continues to review the impact of coronavirus across all tax-advantaged share schemes and will provide updates when necessary.
Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI): working time requirement
In ERS Bulletin 36 we set out HMRC’s understanding in respect of EMI option holders who found they no longer met the working time requirement and told you that legislative changes were being made to support this.
The government announced at Budget 2021 that it will legislate in Finance Bill 2021, to extend the time-limited exception that ensures that employees who are furloughed or working reduced hours because of coronavirus, continue to meet the working time requirements for EMI schemes.
The change will apply to existing participants of EMI schemes and it also allows employers to issue new EMI options to employees who do not meet the working time requirement as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
This measure will have effect until 5 April 2022.
You can find more information by reading the Enterprise Management Incentives extension of time-limited exception to working time requirements tax information and impact note.
EMI: call for evidence
As part of the review announced at Budget 2020, the government has published a consultation at Budget 2021 on whether and how to expand the current EMI scheme to ensure it offers effective support for high-growth companies seeking to recruit and retain key employees.
This call for evidence seeks views and evidence on whether and how the scheme should be expanded.
More information on this and how to respond is found at Enterprise Management Incentives: call for evidence.
Save as you Earn (SAYE)
HMRC confirmed their decision in ERS Bulletin 35 to extend the payment holiday for SAYE participants who are unable to contribute because they’re furloughed or on unpaid leave, during the coronavirus pandemic.
HMRC can confirm that this decision and guidance still applies and will be subject to ongoing review. The examples in ERS Bulletin 36 are still relevant.
Shares Asset Valuation (SAV) Mailbox
Some customers are still trying to contact SAV via their old mailbox addresses that include .gsi. These are no longer forwarded to the current mailbox. The correct mailbox name was given out in ERS Bulletin 35 and is savexternal.mailbox@hmrc.gov.uk.
Non Statutory Clearance (NSC) process
HMRC shares schemes teams continue to provide advice and support where possible, in response to enquiries sent to the Shareschemes mailbox, which is detailed below. This mailbox should be used for general or straightforward enquiries.
You can find further guidance in the Employee Tax Advantaged Share Scheme User Manual and the Employment Related Securities Manual.
For cases of complexity or where there may be ambiguity in the application of the legislation, the NSC process is the appropriate method for contacting HMRC. You should follow the Non-Statutory Clearance Service guidance and provide information as set out in the relevant Appendix (Usually Appendix A).
You should avoid sending enquiries to personal email addresses unless it is in connection with an existing matter and communications are already ongoing. This will avoid a delayed response if the person whom you have contacted is out of office and is not aware of your enquiry until their return.
HMRC’s contact details for share schemes enquiries
HMRC appreciates that many of the issues surrounding employment related securities and the coronavirus pandemic have caused concern to stakeholders, many of whom have contacted the share schemes mailbox.
With the publication of this Bulletin and ERS Bulletins 35 and 36, we hope many questions will be answered.
You can find further information on available support for businesses at coronavirus (COVID-19) business support.
Due to the situation with the coronavirus pandemic there may be delays in post reaching this team. We recommend that you submit all enquiries by email to Shareschemes@hmrc.gov.uk.
If you need to disclose sensitive information, and have concerns about sending this by email, you should send a short email:
- without any sensitive data
- with details of how we can contact you
We’ll get back to you as soon as possible to arrange an alternative.
If you prefer to send enquires by post, our address is:
Charities, Savings and International 1
HMRC
BX9 1AU
Changes to HMRC email addresses
We’ve been making changes to our email addresses in HMRC. You may have noticed that instead of our email addresses ending in @hmrc.gsi.gov.uk, they’ll end @hmrc.gov.uk. Any emails that you send to our old email addresses will still redirect to us.
Contact HMRC about ERS Bulletins
If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions for future articles you should email: Shareschemes@hmrc.gov.uk.