Share schemes

In today's mobile employment market, the best talent is being more demanding about the composition of their benefits package. Equity incentivisation encourages the retention of staff and is seen as increasingly important to optimising business performance.

How can we help?

This area of practice is complicated and there can be a significant exposure to income tax and national insurance costs if you get it wrong. Our team of experienced lawyers can guide you through the maze of legislation that governs the tax efficient schemes approved by HM Revenue & Customs. If a tax efficient scheme does not meet your objectives then we can advise on the pros and cons of unapproved schemes, phantom schemes and long term incentive plans. We advise on senior executive plans as well as all-employee plans.

In addition to advising on the tax planning surrounding schemes, our share scheme lawyers can advise you on the corporate issues required to implement the scheme. We also provide advice on the implementation and communication of share schemes.

We are also experienced in advising clients on the impact of transactions and restructurings on their share schemes.

Our share scheme services

• Tax efficient HM Revenue & Customs approved shares schemes (Enterprise Management Incentive Schemes, Company Share Option Plans and sharesaver schemes)
• Unapproved share schemes
• Phantom share schemes
• Long term incentive plans
• Employee benefit trusts
• Advice in relation to the impact of corporate transactions on share schemes