Reform of EMI share options? No….but perhaps a reform of CSOPs.
The Spring Statement, published today (23rd March 2022) includes the following passage, extracted from para 4.60:
“At Budget 2020, the government launched a review of the Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) scheme, to ensure it provides support for high-growth companies to recruit and retain the best talent so they can scale up effectively, and to examine whether more companies should be able to access the scheme. The government has concluded that the current EMI scheme remains effective and appropriately targeted. However, the scope of the review will be expanded to consider if the other discretionary tax-advantaged share scheme, the Company Share Option Plan, should be reformed to support companies as they grow beyond the scope of EMI.”
So…are we to assume that there will be no change to the current EMI regime (in place in substantially the same form since 2000), but that attention will now focus instead upon the CSOP regime? Or is this simply an excuse for the Treasury not having had sufficient resource to give the responses received, to the Call for Evidence, the attention they justified?
(Click here for my response to the earlier review of EMI share options referred to above.)
David Pett, Tax Barrister 