The EMI Employee Share Option Scheme

The Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) share option scheme, set up by the Government a few years ago, is proving more popular than ever in the current economic climate, as many business owners are discovering the benefits of these tax-efficient schemes.

Research has shown that granting share options to employees in this sort of scheme helps entrepreneurial businesses to retain and recruit high calibre employees and that companies employing an incentivised workforce are more successful and profitable.

The EMI scheme is particularly tax-efficient when compared to other methods of paying and rewarding staff, such as a cash bonus. This scheme should be of particular interest to all enterprising businesses who are looking to grow in value over the next few years.

Currently, due to the economy, valuations of private companies may be particularly low. This works in favour of the employees and means more of the incentive will go to the employees in the scheme and less will be payable to the Revenue, making the scheme even more tax efficient.

Therefore now may be a very good time to put such a scheme in place if your company is aiming to grow in value over the coming years and needs to recruit, or aims to retain, key members of staff who will have the necessary skills to power the company forward.

If you are considering selling your business in a few yearsí time, the EMI scheme would be an ideal way of maximising the employeesí performance and the generation of profits, thus ensuring the best possible sale price is achieved when you are ready to sell the business.

At Birkett Long we have many years of experience in setting up share option schemes and ensuring that they work well, yet do not cause any problems over issues such as loss of control for the current owners of the business. So call us now to discuss how an employee share option scheme can be tailored to meet your needs.

For more information and a free guide on the EMI scheme, please contact David Cammack at our Colchester office on tel: 01206 217311 or by email [email protected].