4 ms·

Normally shares are not taxed as income in the UK dependent on how they are structured -dividends are though. To follow on it is easy to hit the limit on divid

Normally shares are not taxed as income in the UK dependent on how they are structured -dividends are though. To follow on it is easy to hit the limit on dividend allowance if you have shares outside of your ISA

gambiting 5y ago
I've received shares several times from the company where I work in the UK and every single time they have been taxed as income. If you are just given shares straight up then yes, they are subject to income tax on their worth at the time of acquisition.
- walshemj 5y ago
  They didn't bother to set up an HMRC approved scheme? Where these US companies? employee share holders in the USA really get screwed
  - gambiting 5y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean? At the point of acquisition if you are given shares worth say £10k, it's the same as being given £10k cash, or £10k gift of some sort - you pay income tax based on the value of what you were given. It's different if you were given options - then the difference between your purchase price and sale price is taxed as capital gains with separate rules. And no, it's a British company .
    - walshemj 5y ago
      Insane then, why did they not set up a proper scheme https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes. Bit of a red flag that the company is so badly run.
      - gambiting 5y ago
        Because while I work for a British company the shares are awarded by our French HQ, so unfortunately none of those share planes are available in this case. The company employs 50k+ people globally and only HQ awards shares. Also I'm not sure how much tax this would actually save - you can only get £3600 worth of shares tax free per year on the employee incentive plan(which seems closest to what I'm getting, flat number of shares after 4 years). That's a very....low amount.

4 ms·

Normally shares are not taxed as income in the UK dependent on how they are structured -dividends are though. To follow on it is easy to hit the limit on divid

by walshemj 5y ago

gambiting 5y ago
I've received shares several times from the company where I work in the UK and every single time they have been taxed as income. If you are just given shares straight up then yes, they are subject to income tax on their worth at the time of acquisition.
- walshemj 5y ago
  They didn't bother to set up an HMRC approved scheme? Where these US companies? employee share holders in the USA really get screwed
  - gambiting 5y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean? At the point of acquisition if you are given shares worth say £10k, it's the same as being given £10k cash, or £10k gift of some sort - you pay income tax based on the value of what you were given. It's different if you were given options - then the difference between your purchase price and sale price is taxed as capital gains with separate rules. And no, it's a British company .
    - walshemj 5y ago
      Insane then, why did they not set up a proper scheme https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes. Bit of a red flag that the company is so badly run.
      - gambiting 5y ago
        Because while I work for a British company the shares are awarded by our French HQ, so unfortunately none of those share planes are available in this case. The company employs 50k+ people globally and only HQ awards shares. Also I'm not sure how much tax this would actually save - you can only get £3600 worth of shares tax free per year on the employee incentive plan(which seems closest to what I'm getting, flat number of shares after 4 years). That's a very....low amount.