It’s a continuing balancing act for employer’s trying to help their employee base with the current economic storm, whilst safeguarding the future of their business.

A tax-efficient remuneration package may include:

• Salary sacrifice arrangements for pensions and the cycle to work scheme
• Training courses
• Subsidised canteen meals
• Mobile phones
• Up to £500 of professional advice relating to pensions
• Access to sports and recreational facilities
• Death-in-service benefits
• Low-emission cars
• Suggestion and encouragement awards
• Medical check-ups or health screening assessments

Other benefits may simply be a consequence of your business being able to negotiate a lower cost.

Where you are looking for something more, employee share schemes may be the solution.

Employee share schemes can be split into those that are approved by HMRC and those that are not. As a rule, approved schemes have a number of conditions attached while attracting tax benefits, unapproved schemes generally have a lot of flexibility in design but are unlikely to attract significant upfront tax benefits.

Share schemes can be offered to the wider employee base or used to motivate specific individuals. Some schemes will use trust structures which inevitably adds to ongoing professional and administrative costs. Other plans involve options over shares so that control rests with the existing shareholders until a specific point in time or event, however shares can also be issued outright to employees.

Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss your company’s situation and the options available to you.