Tax-advantaged Employee Share Schemes

David Gauke Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Written Statements

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The Government have today published two separate consultation documents on changes to tax-advantaged employee share schemes.

The first contains the Government’s initial response to the recommendations published by the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) on 6 March 2012 in its review of approved employee share schemes. The Government intend to take forward many of these recommendations, including one of the OTS’s main proposals—that self-certification by businesses should replace the current HMRC scheme approvals process. The Government welcome views from interested stakeholders on the design of detailed proposals in this area.

The document also requests further evidence on potential costs, benefits and other impacts of the majority of the OTS’s supplementary recommendations, to help inform future decisions on whether to proceed with these.

The second document published today seeks views on a proposed extension to the enterprise management incentives scheme to benefit academic employees of qualifying companies. This consultation was first announced at Budget 2012.

These consultations will close on 18 September 2012.

Electronic copies of both documents have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.