Employment Related Securities Bulletin 49 (March 2023)
Find out about changes announced at Spring Budget 2023, as well as forthcoming changes to end of year return templates.
Enterprise Management Incentives changes
At the Spring Budget on 15 March 2023, the government announced 3 changes to simplify the process to grant options under the Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) scheme.
Two changes will apply to Enterprise Management Incentives options granted on or after 6 April 2023, and are contained in Spring Finance Bill 2023. These will:
- remove the requirement for the company to set out within the option agreement, details of any restrictions on the shares that can be acquired
- remove the requirement for the company to declare that an employee has signed a working time declaration when they are issued an EMI option (it does not remove the working time requirement itself)
These changes will also apply to options granted before 6 April 2023 but which have not been exercised. This means that employers will only need to consider one set of rules for unexercised options after 6 April 2023. We will provide further guidance on how the rules will be applied to these options in due course.
The third change will apply to Enterprise Management Incentives options granted on or after 6 April 2024, and will be contained in a later Finance Bill. This will extend the time limit for a company to notify HMRC of the grant of an Enterprise Management Incentives option from 92 days following grant, to 6 July following the end of the tax year.
EMI call for evidence response
Alongside introducing these changes to EMI, the government published its response to the Enterprise Management Incentives call for evidence held in 2021.
Call for evidence on Share Incentive Plan and Save As You Earn
At Spring Budget 2023, the government announced it will be launching a call for evidence on the non-discretionary tax advantaged share schemes Save As You Earn (SAYE) and the Share Incentive Plan (SIP).
The government will use the call for evidence to consider opportunities to improve and simplify the schemes. Further details will be provided in due course.
April changes to the end of year templates
In Bulletin 47 we told you about the changes being made to the Employment Related Securities (ERS) end of year templates from 6 April 2023.
To enable you to prepare your end of year returns which are due to be submitted from 6 April 2023, we have published updated end of year template guidance and technical notes.
The new templates and updated checking service will be available online from 6 April 2023.
If you are submitting a return on or before 5 April 2023, you should continue to use the existing end of year templates and refer to the ‘On or before 5 April 2023 Employment Related Securities guidance and technical notes’.
If you are submitting a return from 6 April 2023, you should use the new end of year templates which will be published on 6 April 2023 and refer to the ‘From 6 April 2023 Employment Related Securities guidance and technical notes’.