How to make a reasonable excuse claim for a late Enterprise Management Incentives notification
Find out how to make an excuse claim when you have a good reason for being late in telling HMRC about a grant of an Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) option.
You must have submitted an Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) notification to HMRC:
- within 92 days of the date of grant — if the option was granted before 6 April 2024
- by 6 July following the end of the tax year the grant was made in — if the option was granted on or after 6 April 2024
You may have a valid reason why you did not submit an Enterprise Management Incentives notification to HMRC.
When this happens, your reasons will be taken into account if you make a reasonable excuse claim. If we agree that you have a reasonable excuse, your employee will still qualify for tax advantages.
How to register your scheme
You can only make a reasonable excuse claim once you’ve registered your scheme. If you’ve not registered your scheme yet, you’ll need to do this first through the employment related securities (ERS) online service to get a unique scheme reference number.
How to make a claim
When you have a unique scheme reference number you can make a reasonable excuse claim by emailing shareschemes@hmrc.gov.uk.
You must include:
- your unique scheme reference number
- the name of the company
- the scheme name
- the date options were granted
- the agent name (if you have one)
- the reason your notification is late (if the reason is due to IT problems, give as much information as possible including any online helpdesk reference numbers you may have been given by HMRC)
If we agree that your excuse is reasonable, you’ll be given a reasonable excuse reference number which you’ll need to enter on the employment related securities service.
You must complete the notification as soon as possible after getting the reference number.
Updates to this page
Last updated 6 February 2024 + show all updates
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We have updated the guidance on when you must tell HMRC about a grant of an EMI option
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First published.